The Last Five Years
by Mystic83
Summary: A series of brief glimpses into the thoughts behind the actions of the last five years in the lives of Lieutenant Kara “Starbuck” Thrace and Captain Lee “Apollo” Adama. Please read author's notes... KaraLee
1. Chapter 1

**Pre-story: Author's note: If you start to read this and find it confusing, please skip to the bottom and read my other author's note. Hope you enjoy!**

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Real Author's note: This story was done in the style of Jason Robert Brown's _The Last5 Years._**

**Disclaimers: I do not own these characters (although sometimes I really wish I did!). Some dialogue was taken from the transcripts of the mini-series and Season One found at: http/ The transcripts are slightly different than the miniseries as I know it, but they're entertaining either way. So if the dialogue seems a little strange but entertaining, now you know why. I've also referenced some dialogue from the transcripts at: http/mikou. These are not grammatically accurate but seem a little similar to what was actually said in the mini-series. (I'm not sure if those addresses are going to show up with this site so if you really want to know where I got them from, I can e-mail you the addresses no problem!)**

* * *

Kara tried with all her might to get her body to shift off the machine dead beneath her. Her arms cooperated, but her legs would have nothing to do with it. Letting the pain wash over her, she found her mind focusing on the little piece of metal lying between her fallen opponent and her own badly beaten body.

This was what had caused her life to turn to shambles in less than twenty-four hours.

It hadn't broken in the fall. She didn't know what she would have done if it had. She would have traveled millions of miles just to break the thing she had been sent to retrieve. Not even she could be that big of a screw-up.

Actually, there were quite a few people she loved who would argue that she could be that big of a screw-up.

There was something metallic in her mouth. It took her a second longer than normal to recognize the taste of her own blood. It shouldn't have taken her that long. She was off. Guess fighting a Cylon will do that, she thought.

Her neck could shift a few inches. That was a good sign.

The last time she had been this badly injured was--

No. Don't think about him.

She found herself asking why. Why couldn't she think about Lee? If not now as she lay incapacitated on top of a dead toaster knowing there was no way she could get out of this situation, then when?

She was tired of having to tell herself not to think about him. Not to think about how much he meant to her. Not to think about how much he stood for. How much she needed him and how much he didn't need her.

It hurt.

Pain. At least she could still feel the pain inside her.

Lee's face wouldn't leave her head. She kept imagining what he would be doing at this moment as she began to give up the invincible spirit she never thought she'd lose. On a normal day, he would probably be doing his best to cover for her with the rest of the pilots. She had just taken an important piece of military equipment and jumped home.

Home. That was an odd way of putting it.

Caprica wasn't anyone's home anymore, least of all hers. It hadn't been her home for two years.

It was still Lee's home, though, in a way. He had never found his place on Atlantia like she had on Galactica. He had told her that himself only a few days earlier.

Lee. It always came back to him, didn't it?

Perfect, by-the-rules Lee.

He was probably now devising some strategy to rescue the stranded crew down on Kobol. He would be flying flights to figure out how big a force of Cylons they had to fight and how they could do it without their ace-in-the-hole Cylon Raider. He would be working himself to death to make sure they had the right men and equipment to get the job done and done right. He would be at President Roslin's side advising and his own father's side pointing out the mistakes.

A peacekeeper to the end.

One thing he would not be doing is thinking of her. There would be no exhaustive search for the missing Starbuck. Lee hated her, and the Old Man had made it blatantly clear that the Fleet was more important than doing the right thing by her.

The memory of Lee's face when she had apologized stayed in her head. He hadn't looked glad that she had humbled herself for his benefit. He just looked tired.

She had made him tired. Perfect Lee who strove so hard to be a good CAG and a good pilot and a good son and a good friend. She had destroyed him slowly and surely since the day they had first met.

Lee had given up on her in that one sad, tired look. And if he didn't believe in her, then there sure as hell was no chance she believed that this imperfect Viper pilot who always beat the odds could accomplish the impossible one last time

She would show him though. If he didn't care whether she lived or died beyond the sheer fact that if she died the Fleet will have lost another pilot, then she would just show him how invaluable she was as that one pilot. He couldn't hate the pilot that brought hope back to a humanity that didn't even know they had lost it.

Groaning, she finally pushed the thoughts of Lee out of her head and forced herself to limp to her feet. Reassuring hands gripped her body and helped her up.

For one brief second, she thought that Lee had come for her after all.

But of course, that was ridiculous.

* * *

Lee Adama stared around the briefing room on the main campus of the Academy of the Twelve Colonies as everyone started arriving for their orientation. He could see a few familiar faces from his days of general schooling. Most of the people, including those he knew, looked scared, confused, intimated. He wasn't any of those things.

All he was to anyone right now was another Commander's son who had had no problem getting acceptance into the Viper training program because it would be a slight to Daddy if he got rejected.

Everyone would be wrong. The great William "Husker" Adama had helped him get his foot in the door, but that was all. Lee planned to make it to graduation with only his merits to credit for the success. He would fly his ass off until everyone saw that he was good enough to be in this program no matter who his father was. They might say it was genetic, the ease he felt in a cockpit, but he didn't care. At least genetics implied that he was utilizing his talent to its fullest.

He waved to Broc, his best friend since primary school, who was leaning against the back wall. "Why aren't you down there?" he asked, pointing to the front row where there was no one sitting.

"I'm a little too intimidated to just go and plop myself in front of where the instructors are going to be staring us down in a few minutes as an act of intimidation."

Lee nodded. The reason made sense, but he still couldn't help but feel that it only pointed out how out of place Broc was in this environment. He shouldn't be nervous because of the instructors' desire to intimidate. Everyone knew it was coming. You just stared at the wall and took it.

"So how does the competition size up?" Lee asked, scanning the room.

"There are your usual tough guys who keep making circles around the room, staring people down. And then there's the usual bookworms who are smart but mostly got in because they have parents in high places. No offense, Lee."

"None taken as long as you-"

"-understand that you're good enough to be here. I know. Am I your friend or not?"

Lee rolled his eyes. "So anyone else?"

Broc chuckled and pushed off the wall as he began to get noticeably excited at what he was about to say. "You're never going to believe this part. But, well, there was this little slip of a blonde girl walking around before. I thought that maybe she was lost. Someone beat me to the punch before I could get over there and ask her if she needed help. She gave them one cold look and marched herself up to the front row that no one seems to want to sit in and sat in the center."

Lee's eyes immediately fell on the girl Broc was talking about. He had been wrong about the front row being empty because, sure enough, a blonde girl was sitting there, looking very standoffish. She was fiddling with the chain her newly issued Nugget dog tag was hanging on.

Broc had continued talking, but Lee had stopped listening. Something about this girl intrigued him. Somehow he knew that she wasn't the little frail, lost thing that his best friend had taken her to be. There was a power in the way that she sat. And her eyes kept scanning everyone around her as if she was searching for weakness in all those present.

Unlike almost every other person in the briefing room, she looked like she knew what she was doing. She looked important. She looked like she belonged.

Lee continued to stare at her, trying to figure out if he should know who this mystery person was and why she might be so fraking important.

The staring had nothing to do with the fact that he found her pretty.

Nothing at all.

* * *

The words echoed through Kara's ear.

I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry.

How cowardly did they sound?

She couldn't have said that she frakked up. That she hadn't meant to take home the first warm body that showed interest. That the whole point of the night hadn't been for her to quench her sexual thirst with whomever was available.

But then, the truth had never really worked out for her when it came to Lee. She had been lying to him from practically the first moment they spoke. It was a part of who they were.

Why hadn't she been able to tell him the truth this one time?

That the only reason she went with Baltar was because she couldn't go with him.

If for one glimmer of a second it had been possible…

Needless to say, she wouldn't have gone with the Galactica's resident crazy.

Biting her lip, she stared at the empty space Lee had occupied seconds earlier. The Marines were still posted, keeping an eye on the Cylon Raider. For as much as her boy was being watched, you would have thought it was made out of solid gold. Or solid nicotine and ambrosia, seeing as how they were much more precious in these times than something silly as gold.

She grabbed the wrench that she had been using to tighten a few of the bolts and got back to work. She would have time to dwell on how much of a coward she was when it came to Lee later.

Turning to look at the door Lee had rushed out of one last time, she frowned as she saw Billy Keikeya waving at her. "President Roslin wishes to speak to you immediately if you're not otherwise engaged, Lieutenant Thrace."

She had no idea what the frak was going on, but if Billy was talking in such a formal manner, it must be big. Sighing she figured the repairs could wait. She would have to fix the Raider and her personal life at some other time.

"Well, I guess keeping our collective asses far, far away from the Cylons isn't that important," she yelled to Billy even though he was already out the door.

It seemed like everyone was running from her voice these days.

* * *

Lee slammed the cockpit hatch to his simulator open. He knew that everyone expected him to come vaulting out, gloating at his accomplishment.

They didn't know that he hadn't meant to do it.

He hadn't meant to beat her.

His face reddened as all the eyes in the room clearly focused on him.

It had been the normal weekly flight simulation they were all obligated to do as nuggets. There was some silly competition between the different halls in his dorm as to who could perform the best. He didn't care about that. How he flew only mattered to the instructors and even that was only when he could get out of the simulators and into the real thing.

That didn't stop the little blonde thing he had seen all over the campus since that day in the briefing room from barreling into the room while yelling about how the instructors had seen it fit that she be matched up with this bunch of frak-ups. Seems like they were getting a little too big-headed.

Lee couldn't even pretend to have no idea what she meant. His flight simulator partners had all gotten a little too cocky. The problem was they were usually only given team assignments, not assignments of individual skill. They weren't particularly good as a group, but with Lee on their team, they hadn't failed once.

They were getting cocky when they didn't have the chops to back it up. Secretly, he was glad that the instructors had thrown her in with them for this particular sim. This was an individual test in which you didn't have to watch out for anyone's back but your own. He knew from the rumors circulating that she wouldn't hesitate for one second if it came to the point where they got in the way of her own success. She would be ruthless.

Lee had been about to turn quietly and start his simulated pre-flight checklist, but when she kept talking, he froze.

"Let me see. You're probably the worst of them, aren't you?"

He was shocked to realize she was pointing at him. "Huh?"

"You are the person the instructors sent me in here to put in his place, aren't you, hotshot?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, secretly laughing at the fact that she had read the situation completely wrong. He was the hotshot who was going to soar because she was here to put down the rest of his team.

"You think that just because I'm not on your squad that I don't watch your sims? Your team is ragged. There's no flow. If there hadn't been some strange miracle in each one of your flights, you all would have been simulated dead. And word is you're the ring leader. How someone who flies so sloppy can lead is beyond me."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Lee hissed, suddenly wishing he had bothered to learn this rather annoying girl's name.

"I bet you think you're some sort of god. That you were destined to be in the sky and that no one can touch you when you're up there. Well, wake up, fly boy. You're not a god."

And then she disappeared into the flight simulator that had been assigned to Broc before he realized he couldn't hack it and dropped out of the Academy. For some reason, it seemed fitting that she should be riding in the spot of his best friend.

The only thing that had kept even a semblance of control to his flying in the beginning of the simulation was the fact that she hadn't made a dig about him being Daddy's little boy. She had left out all the usual taunts. He gave her a little leave-way because of that.

His teammates all dropped out of the simulation within minutes. It was just he and this girl fighting against one another to see who could accurately shoot the Cylon targets while flying as fast and as accurately as they could. She had kept up with him for the first hundred or so targets. But then he could practically taste her getting fatigued.

And suddenly he found himself wanting to rub in how wrong she was. He wanted to point out that she might be good, but she would never be the best with him in the cockpit.

He threw in all the hot dog moves that he had vowed to never use. He flipped his simulated Viper end to end and shot targets that were behind him as well as in front. He rolled and pitched so that she had to go on the defensive, and he took out a few of the targets which were obviously intended as easy shots for her guns. Throughout it all, he could hear her voice swearing over the comms that linked simulator to simulator.

He knew she wanted him to taunt her. To point out how wrong she had been.

He didn't need words for that. His actions would speak loud enough. And taunts would only serve to anger her into stepping up her game.

Then the buzzer rang. The simulation ended. Reality set in.

And he realized how much he had humiliated her. He had let his temper get the better of him and had taken down a pilot who hadn't needed a reality check.

She had been cocky and now he had made himself the center of attention.

Crap. So much for laying low until he got his wings.

One of his fellow students yelled out, "So, how does it feel to be a god, Apollo?"

He rolled his eyes. Apollo. God of the sun. Cute.

The name rang through people's cheers and chants. The only thing that kept him from grimacing was knowing, at least after a few minutes, no one would ever call him such a conceited name again.

* * *

Pilot who couldn't keep her pants on?

Was that really all he thought of her? After all they had been through together?

Kara rubbed the bruise that was already forming on her jaw and hissed in pain. He sure hadn't forgotten how to hit.

Frak. She should have known after that little show of domination by Dr. Baltar in the pilot ready room that Lee would figure out what he was referring to. At least, he would figure out the parts already known by the notorious gossips of the Fleet, and those would probably only be the parts Dr. Baltar wished to divulge to others.

That other part. The important part. The part that had made her flee Gaius's room like there was a herd of Cylons coming for her. Lee would never, ever, ever know about that.

Kara toyed with the tools in front of her, unconsciously lining them up in order of their scarcity in the new world that couldn't reproduce tools. Maybe if she just told him what she had said when Gaius was… well, when she was… when they were…

"Frak. I can't even think it," she said, rolling her eyes and pushing the tools back into one big pile. "How the hell am I supposed to say it to him?"

She knew she had to do something, though. He was hurt. Gods know why, but he was hurt by what she had done. Like all her other screw-ups, she wasn't going to rest until she fixed this. She just hoped it wouldn't take two years like her last mistake which had managed to horribly divide a father and his son.

First off, things were not going to get better if she just sat here and lost herself in her thoughts. She needed to stop worrying about how bad of a mess she had gotten into and focus on the things that she would actually need to begin repairing the damage.

She hated to admit it but she would actually need Gaius Baltar back aboard Galactica if she wanted to be successful in her little repair mission. Lee probably wouldn't believe a word of what she was going to tell him if Baltar wasn't right there to admit his humiliation or to back up her story.

Wait. Would a proud man like the good doctor really readily admit his humiliation?

Kara flexed the muscles in her hand. Baltar would admit whatever the frak she wanted him to.

Because she had not forgotten how to punch either.

* * *

Lee ran his hand through his still wet hair and, grabbing the key card that would let him back into the dorms, made his way out the door. He hoped his brother hadn't been waiting in too long in the rundown bar most of the nuggets training to be Viper pilots preferred.

When Zak had first called him to let him know that he was training to be a Viper pilot, Lee had been surprised. His brother had never really shown much promise at flying. A lot of times, Lee only thought he tried so that he could gain some of his father's attention. The great Commander only seemed to want to talk to them when they were doing particularly good things in the air.

Groaning, Lee broke out into a slight jog. He had warned his brother that he wasn't sure if he could make this little dinner. His first few weeks in War College were wearing him thin. It had gotten to the point where he really wasn't sure if he could eat and sleep let alone socialize with his brother.

But then he thought about how hard those first few months in the Academy had been on him. And he had had the raw talent to back up the challenge flying gave him. Zak didn't. His little brother had to be going nuts, trying to pull out decent scores on those simulators. A supportive brother would be there for him no matter how busy he was.

Lee smiled at the sight of the rundown bar that he had frequented so many nights when he was in the Academy. He hadn't had time to make it down here in months. Seeing the people laughing and joking as they indulged in a little ambrosia and triad made him understand his decision had been right. This place was distraction at its worst, and if he was going to make it through War College and the officer training that accompanied it, he would need to avoid it.

He had resigned himself to that. But then a call from his brother had brought him rushing down here.

He spotted Zak sitting at a table in the back and grinned. His kid brother loved being the center of attention as much as Lee hated it. He had chosen this table away from the action for his brother's sake.

"Hey," Lee said, sliding into a chair across from Zak.

"I wasn't sure you were going to make it," Zak said, holding up his watch. "Half an hour late?"

"My classes ran long, and then they threw me into a Viper flight. I had to take a shower after that as a favor to you nuggets."

"Well, at least you made it," Zak said. He leaned back and took a sip of ambrosia out of the glass in front of him. "I guess you're wondering why I asked you down here."

"I am." Lee said. He turned to signal at the bartender to send over two more drinks.

"Better make it three," Zak said.

"Someone joining us?"

"Yeah. She actually just went to check on a few of her pilots who weren't looking so well."

"First, she? And second, her pilots?"

"My new girlfriend. And she's an instructor for first years."

"You're dating a teacher?"

"Don't make it sound so dirty."

Lee leaned back in his chair as the tiny little waitress who had been staring at him since he walked in brought their drinks over. "Thank you."

"No problem," she said in a drawl that clearly identified her as a citizen of Geminon. "Should you need anything at all, I'll be right over there."

Lee nodded and watched her walk off.

"How do you do it, big brother?"

"Do what?" he said, turning his attention back to Zak.

"Get girls to lust after you without even looking at them."

"I'm not interested," he said, even though it was really not an explanation. "She's not my type."

"And what type would that be?"

Lee's mind immediately flew to the woman whose image had been occupying his dreams of late. "The type of woman who wouldn't take shit from men like that waitress is doing with those nuggets. But let's not get into that. Let's go back to the fact that you're probably breaking about fifty Academy rules by dating an instructor."

"We're not hiding our relationship, and her boss has made it clear that she's not to be the one administering tests to me at any point. She just helps me with my flight simulations."

"And boy do you need it."

The voice made Lee freeze. Frak. If that was who he thought it was, then he was in trouble.

Hoping to the gods that he hadn't recognized the voice correctly, he turned to look at his brother's new girlfriend and flight instructor.

Yeah. There she was. The woman he had seen on and off as they worked their way through the Academy training program. The woman he had lost control around and ground into the dust that day in the simulators. The little blond thing that was so many more things than she seemed.

But worst off, she was the woman who he had been having rather vivid R-rated fantasies about every single time he closed his eyes.

Frak didn't even begin to cover it.

* * *

Gaius. Dr. Baltar. Dr. Gaius Baltar. Gaius. Gaius. Gaius.

How come every time she said his name Lee's image was still the one she saw in her head?

She had no idea why she was connecting the two men. They were nothing the same.

Lee. Gaius.

Nope. They didn't even sound the same.

There was no way to pawn it off. Her body had been in bed with one man while her mind was in bed with the other.

She passed one of her fellow pilots in the hall and gave him a mock salute with one hand while still holding her dress up with the other. There would be a lot of questions for her for the rest of the day. No one in the Fleet could turn down the opportunity to spread a little bit of good gossip.

And it wasn't everyday that the almighty Starbuck hustled down the halls in a half-worn dress looking like she had spent the whole night fraking the new Vice President of the Twelve Colonies.

Even after she had made her way to the bunkroom, she still couldn't figure out why she had said Lee's name. True, there had been a lot of ambrosia going around the night before, and she had spent a lot of time with Lee. But she wasn't stupid. The alcohol had worn off by the wee hours of the morning. And Lee had so callously left her in the hands of Baltar hours before.

Gods. She couldn't believe it. She had been thinking about Lee the whole time, as if it was he touching her in all the right places and not the new Vice-President. She had been closing her eyes and picturing the way her legs would wrap around his body, urging him closer. And she had been moaning his name in the hopes that the Lee in her mind would turn out to be the man in her… well… body.

Then, she had opened her eyes and realized that she was a fraking moron.

Shrugging out of the dress and throwing on her usual tanks and sweats, she slid into bed.

Sleep might help her avoid the problem for a little while.

And that was what she was best at. Avoidance.

Her eyes drifted over to Lee's bunk. The curtain was shut, denying her the information of whether or not he was inside.

* * *

She rolled her eyes and scolded herself silently. _And what if he was inside, Kara? What the frak would you do? Pull back the curtain and join him? Tell him the funny story about how you were fraking the Vice President and said his name? Admit that you were hurt when he just handed you over the night before on Cloud Nine? Just throw caution to the mind and assault his body with your tongue? Admit that you have been confused about your feelings for him since he walked into that bar on Picon all those years earlier?_

It was official, she decided as she slid her curtain closed to hide from the outside world. She was pitiful. 

Lee walked into the bar on Picon after pausing slightly at the sense of deja vu. This whole situation was familiar. About eight months earlier, he had strolled in happy to see his little brother and left confused as to why he wasn't happy that Zak had found someone to love.

And now he was walking back in to meet the two people that had confused him so badly before.

He made a detour at the bar. This time he wouldn't be stupid enough to wait to order the alcohol until after he had found them. In fact, if he could get a few drinks in him before they even noticed he was here, all the better.

"Lee!"

Maybe not. He grabbed the drink from the bartender and threw a few cubits down.

The sound of her voice calling out his name still felt new and strange. They had gone through Academy together without even uttering each other's call signs, let alone their actual real names. And now she just tossed it around like they had known each other since they were young.

All the same, he didn't hesitate to give her a small wave of recognition before dropping his gaze as he pushed his way through the crowd to their table. "Again, I find myself answering a cryptic summons from my little brother," he said with a laugh as he took a seat.

"He doesn't have a new girlfriend this time," Kara said with a laugh, grabbing Zak's hand in hers.

Kara. When had he let himself think of her on such a personal level? Why couldn't she just be that little blonde thing? Or the girl he had beat in simulations? Why did she have to be Kara?

"No, I don't," Zak said. He tore his eyes away from hers in order to look at Lee. "I have a fiancée."

Lee knew that choking on his drink had not been the reaction they wanted, but it was what happened. "What did you just say?"

"I asked Kara to marry me yesterday, and she said yes."

Lee nodded his head slowly, trying to process this new information. He hadn't even known that his little brother was getting serious with his new girlfriend. He had been too busy trying to find a way to get through War College so that he could finally get his placement on some Battlestar far, far away from this very problem. Plus, he still had the goal in his head that he would be a better man than his father on all levels, and then finally, maybe the pressure would let up.

Not that he hadn't taken time to learn about this new girl in his brother's life. He found out that she was the daughter of a rather obscure military trainer mother and one of the best jazz musicians on Caprica. He found out that she had practically breezed through all the flying courses in Academy but struggled through the basic arts. He found out that she was a frequent visitor to the brig and had a problem with too much ambrosia when combined with men that were, frankly, fraking idiots.

All that research had been for his brother's own sake, of course. It had nothing to do with his own curiosity.

And now his brother was making this little relationship permanent. Something that no self-respecting Viper pilot would do. They knew that their lives were too hectic to let themselves make such attachments. Which, come to think of it, begged the question of why an Academy-trained Flight Instructor would want to put herself in that position, too.

Gods, this was all too much.

"Congratulations," he finally spit out after realizing they had been patiently staring at him, waiting for a reaction.

Zak rolled his eyes. "I think we need more ambrosia."

Before Lee could protest, his brother was gone. Now it was only Kara and Lee at the table.

"So, you didn't exactly sound thrilled," she commented after a moment of awkward silence.

"Well, you can only imagine," he blurted out. Oh gods. That did not come out right.

"Yeah. The baby boy of one of the greatest Viper pilots in the history of the Twelve Colonies marrying the trailer trash of Caprica. Sometimes even I don't believe it."

He stared at her in confusion. Was that really what she thought of herself? "No. It's not that. It's just… it seemed to me like you had more sense than that."

"I don't understand."

"Well. I assumed that after you finished your assignment as a flight instructor you would be going to War College to obtain an official placement out in the field. You and I both know that no matter how good of a teacher you are, there's no way Zak's going to make it through Academy. So then, what is he going to do when his wife is stationed on a ship orbiting another planet?"

"How much thought have you put into this, Lee?"

Oh frak. He had said too much. Lee looked behind him, frantically wondering when Zak was going to come back. He couldn't even see his little brother through the crowd. Defeated, he turned back to look at Kara.

It surprised him to see her also scanning the room, presumably for Zak. Her eyes locked on his for a few seconds before she quickly shifted to stare down at her hands. The ring on her left hand caught the light and shined brightly. It seemed like she had already gotten in the nervous habit of fidgeting with it.

Nervous habit? What the frak did she have to be nervous about?

Unlike him, it seemed like her life was just going splendidly these days. "How has instructing been going for you?" he asked, trying to bring up a topic that was much more safe than if they continued on with their discussion of the now not-so-secret engagement.

"Oh gods. You wouldn't believe the nuggets they send my way…"

He found himself staring at her sudden burst of excitement. She seemed to really love her job even though it was clearly a waste of some of the best talent the Twelve Colonies had. Her eyes had lit up as she started telling story after story about the new blood trying to make their way through Academy without washing out.

Her words slowly faded out as all of his senses suddenly directed themselves onto the glowing sight sitting in front of him. She looked a lot less jaded and soft when she let down her defenses, which obviously wasn't often from what he heard. He could see what had attracted his brother to her in the first place.

A voice in the back of his head nagged him to admit that he didn't have to invoke his brother to understand what would attract a man to this woman sitting before him. He would only have to consult his own memory of seeing her that first day in the briefing room.

She had seemed stubborn, not willing to budge for anyone. She had seemed smarter than most of the other people in the room without even having to say a word. And she had been the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

He stared at her from across the table as she still continued talking about her students.

She still was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Frak. His whole body froze as it suddenly dawned on him what was going on.

When had he fallen in love with his brother's girlfriend?

He watched as Kara paused in her story to give Zak a smile as he returned to their table with a round of drinks.

Scratch that. Make that in love with his brother's fiancée.

* * *

Kara had thrown caution to the wind after downing her fourth glass of ambrosia and let Lee lead her onto the dance floor. If she couldn't do this now with the perfect excuse of blaming it on the alcohol in the morning, when could she do it?

Surprisingly, he didn't protest nor did he push her away as she rested her head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped themselves around her and held her in close.

And suddenly she was scared to death. She hadn't known it was possible to be this happy.

She hadn't felt like this. Not even with Zak.

Zak. Oh gods. She had forgotten. Oh gods. Oh gods. This was wrong. She had to pull away from Lee. She had to stop thinking about how happy she was. About how happy he made her. Happiness only led to heartache for a girl like her. Oh gods. She didn't want to kill Lee. Frak. How could she possibly save him from herself?

Before she could come up with a solution, Dr. Baltar stepped forward and asked to cut in. When she saw the relieved look on Lee's face, she realized that the whole moment between them must have been entirely in her head.

Good. It was easier that way.

But when Dr. Baltar pulled her close and she closed her eyes to the world, she couldn't lie to herself. She was wishing that Lee hadn't left.

But he had left her, hadn't he?

And she wasn't afraid to admit how much that hurt.

* * *

Lee was in the middle of the daily jog he had taken to going on in order to get used to the schematics of Battlestar Atlantia when his eyes locked on to a face he never thought he'd see on this ship.

"What the frak are you doing here, Zak?"

"I caught a shuttle that was leaving Picon early this morning. There were a few things I wanted to ask you before you come to my graduation in a few weeks. I didn't want to go through all that pomp and circumstance with Dad and telling him about our engagement without talking to you first."

Lee wiped the sweat off his face. "I told you before Zak. Dad won't care about you and Kara. If it doesn't hurt your chances of being a Viper pilot, he won't care."

"This isn't really about Dad, Lee. It's about you."

"Me?" Lee said, scrunching up his face in confusion. "Your pressing questions have to do with me?"

Zak rubbed his face and gave a sigh. "Listen, Lee. There's no way I can ask you this easily, so I'm just going to do it. What do you feel for Kara?"

"She's a good girl. I think she's going to make you happy, Zak." He let out a tense laugh. "But you didn't have to fly all the way to Atlantia for me to tell you that. I thought you already knew how much respect I have for your future wife."

"Respect? Is that all you have for her?"

"Admiration. Appreciation. Do you want me to go on?'

"How about love, Lee? Do you love her?"

Lee felt his heart freeze. The way his brother was looking at him… he knew. Oh gods. He didn't know how, but Zak knew that he was in love with Kara. "I love the way she makes you happy," he lied.

"Right. But do you love her?"

There was no way around this. He had never in his life told an outright lie to his little brother. But he had no other choice.

"No. Of course I don't. Kara and I had never even spoken to one another before you introduced her to me. I have to admit I knew who she was. Her actions at Academy were legendary. The girl spent more time in the brig than in the cockpit." Lee gave his brother his best fake smile. "But as for me loving her, no. I don't."

Zak nodded, and Lee could tell immediately that his brother hadn't believed a word he said. "Kara and I are going to get married, Lee. We are. I just wanted to make sure you knew that."

"I do," Lee said, understanding the subtext of his brother's words. He might love Kara, but Zak was the one whom she loved back.

That realization rang through his head as he watched his little brother turn his back to him and walk away.

* * *

Lee's words rang through her ears as she made her way back to the shuttle that would take her to the Quorum on Cloud Nine. He had practically accused her of being some sort of dirty slob who wouldn't know how to clean herself up if it was a matter of life or death. He had meant it in joking, but it still kind of stung.

Trying to remember, she guessed he had never really seen her when she was out of the normal regulation clothing that military gave them. Though she had always thought she looked just fine when she wore that little zip-up green hoodie and left out the double tanks. She had caught many a male pilot on Galactica staring at how nice and clean the hoodie made her… eyes look.

Fine. If Lee wanted to know what he was missing, she would show him.

She waltzed over and picked up the first service phone she saw. "CIC," she heard Dee's familiar voice say.

"Dee, it's Starbuck. I need you to do me a favor. Word on the ship is there's a big celebration going down after the election, and it can't be stopped even if Zarek wins. I need a dress for it."

"A dress? But I thought dress blues were acceptable for you officers."

"They are. I just don't want to wear them."

"Does this have something to do with a certain Captain?"

Kara's heart froze. Gods. Was she that obvious? "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I saw you staring at Captain Holt the other day in the mess."

At first, she had no idea what Dee was talking about. But then she remembered the Captain in question having eaten a rather disgusting slop of whatever they were calling a meal that day. He had gotten it all over him, and yet no one was pointing it out. She couldn't help but stare. "Dee, I really don't want to talk about it."

"All right. I'll see what I can do."

Kara hung up the phone with a satisfying smack. Take that, Lee!

She let out a small laugh before it suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea why it was so important that she show Lee how wrong he was about her hygiene. When had she started carrying about her appearance in that way?

About the time the Twelve Colonies were decimated and a certain Captain got stranded on your ship, you self-deluded moron.

She really hated that nagging voice in her head that always told the truth.

* * *

Lee watched as the strongest woman he had ever known beside his mother broke down. She had held it together while everyone was gathered around the closed casket as it was lowered into the ground accompanied by the normal twelve-gun salute.

Now that only he and she stood in front of the covered grave, she had let herself go. Frak. She probably didn't even know he was still here, watching her.

He didn't know what to say to make her feel better.

"I know you're there, Lee," she whispered, pushing the tears from her eyes and glancing over at him.

"Are you going to be all right?" he asked, stepping forward to place a hand on her shoulder. Gods. Could he be any more impersonal?

She shrugged away from his touch and took a step towards the grave. "The man I intended to marry just died, Lee. He died in a fire caused by the Viper I taught him to fly. No. I am definitely not going to be all right."

He didn't know what to say to that. In fact, he didn't know what to say to most of what she had said to him since he received the news that his brother had been killed while flying.

He wanted to tell her that things were going to be all right. That even if she felt her life was over now that Zak was gone, she would manage to rebuild somehow. She could still fly better than any other pilot out there. She had that to fall back on.

But the words wouldn't leave his mouth. They would only sound hollow, anyway.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell."

And now she was apologizing. His heart ached for the destroyed woman standing in front of him.

Because the words still weren't right for him to say, he simply stepped forward and took her hand in his. At least he could be a comfort for her with a while. As much as it pained him to be so close to her and still be holding so much back, he wasn't about to step away.

Kara had unknowingly reached out to him for help even if she would forever deny it. He wasn't going to back down just because of a little emotional pain. He had been raised better than that.

Maybe someday he'll find a way to tell her that she was going to survive this. Maybe someday he could show her that life would go on.

But for now, he was content to just show her that he was here for her to lean on. He was going to show her that at the very least she could go on for the next few minutes.

After that, he wasn't sure what came next.

* * *

He practically flew out of the cockpit to bask in the praise of his fellow pilots. He had pulled off an impossible plan that she wasn't even sure she could have done. He had pushed himself outside the box and saved all of humanity.

Not bad for one day's work.

Kara watched him pull Cally into a full hug. He must be pretty happy if he was so obviously willing to violate the fraternization policy that seemed to be the law by which he lived. She should know. She kept a close enough watch.

"Apollo, you magnificent bastard! That was one hell of a piece of flying, and I couldn't have done it better myself."

He feigned like he hadn't heard her over the chaos around. "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."

Okay. After what she put him through, he deserved to hear it twice. "I said I couldn't have done it better myself."

"Well, thank you," he said, toasting his drink at her.

"I had my doubts," she admitted. That was close enough to the truth. She didn't doubt his flying ability. She doubted her plan.

"So did I." She gave him a look of surprise. No way would the Lee she knew have let her lack of faith transfer into his own feelings of inadequacy. "I wasn't sure that crazy ass plan of yours could even possibly work."

Okay. Guess the feelings of her own inadequacy were mutual. She could live with that. She could live with anything if it meant he would go on smiling like that. For once it didn't seem like he had the weight of their world and the next on his shoulders.

"You deserve this," she said, holding a cigar out to him. She hoped he wouldn't notice it was the same brand that his father smoked. If he ever found out she had given him her welcome home present from flying that Cylon Raider back to the Fleet, she would never live it down.

He didn't notice.

She watched as he smoked and laughed with those around him. And it was at that moment, when she had forgotten about the Cylons, forgotten about the upcoming Quorum of Twelve, forgotten about the fact that her knee was still screwed up and she couldn't fly, and yes, even forgotten about Zak and the role he still played in her life… It was at that moment that she realized why everyone had doubted Lee.

Her presence in his life was holding him back. Having Starbuck as a friend was like shoving yourself as far away from the spotlight as you could.

He was better than her, and they both knew it. But that knowledge ended there. With the possible exception of the Old Man, no other person understood why Lee was the right choice for CAG and the right choice to go on this mission. No one understood how lucky they were that he had been on board Galactica when the Cylons chose to attack.

She stared at his blatant happiness for a moment before fading away into the background. Let him enjoy his day in the sun. And maybe it will last past the point when she got back into the sky.

Gods. She wanted that to last for him.

* * *

Lee paced up and down the length of the long hall in the house on Caprica that his mother had always been so proud of. He had just spent the entirety of dinner listening to his mother go on and on about how well Kara was doing. She had breezed right through officer's training and then quickly accepted his father's offer of a place on Galactica.

That's where she was now.

Caroline Adama had mentioned that Kara hadn't even been thrown into the brig once in the past six months. And that was the point where Lee really starting worrying. For the past two years, the most common occurrence in all Twelve Colonies was hearing the words 'Starbuck' and 'brig' together in the same sentence.

If she was avoiding trouble, then there still must be some sort of sadness or anger festered up inside her. He desperately wanted to know why she hadn't let it go yet. It had been a year.

Suddenly determined, he picked up the phone and dialed in the security number and connection location he had known since childhood.

"Caprica private residence, this is Galactica receiving your transmission."

Lee startled for a second. For as long as he could remember, the voice that answered the transmissions had been an elderly man too old to advance farther than this position. This time the voice belonged to someone a lot younger and a lot more unsure of what they were doing. Not to mention that this someone was definitely a woman.

Clearing his throat, he pushed that thought to the side. "Galactica, I'm requesting you connect me with Lieutenant Kara Thrace if she's available."

"Understood."

Lee waited for the voice to click off. When it didn't, he asked, "Is there a problem, Galactica?"

"No. I just…" The young girl's voice paused. "Well, isn't this the number to the Commander's old residence on Caprica?"

"Yes. It is."

"And you don't want to talk to the Old Man? Oh gods. I didn't not just call him that on the comms. I am so going to get fraking fired. Oh gods. I just said frak. Oh. I said it again."

Lee let out a chuckle. "Is this your first day?"

"Yes, sir. Wait. Are you a sir? I don't even know."

"What's your name?"

"Petty Officer Dualla, sir. But everyone calls me Dee."

"Well, Dee, I guess then I would be a sir to you. I'm Lieutenant Lee Adama which is why I'm calling from the Commander's old residence. I don't want to talk to my father right now. I'd like you to connect me to Starbuck." Lee paused for a moment. "And don't be worried about your job. I'm sure you're doing just fine. In fact, the bumbling is kind of charming."

"Thank you, sir. Connecting."

Her voice cut off this time, and Lee let out a little chuckle. This girl was definitely going to have some hard work cut out for her if she was going to stay on in her post as communications officer.

"Lieutenant Thrace speaking."

And there it was. The voice he hadn't heard almost a year.

"Hello? Is there anyone fraking there?"

He found that he couldn't get himself say anything. Hearing her voice was drumming up things he had spent so much time trying to forget.

"Damnit, Dee. If you even cut off another call for me, I'm going to personally march myself down to CIC and show you how it's done."

Lee wasn't even hearing her words anymore as he set down the receiver.

Calling her had been a stupid, unthinking move on his part. He had no idea what to say to her. 'Sorry that a year ago the man you loved died' just wasn't going to cut it. Neither was 'I'm worried because I hear you've been on your best behavior lately'.

And he definitely wasn't about to admit to her what the mere sound of her voice did to his heart. It was currently beating at a hundred miles before hour. He had really thought he had gotten over those feelings when they parted ways after Zak's funeral. But the guilt of loving his brother's girl was still there.

He stared at the phone. The guilt was there. And obviously, so was the love itself.

He heard his mother enter the kitchen and yell for him to help her with the groceries.

Frak. She better not start talking about the wonder that was Kara again.

* * *

Kara heard herself telling him that he would be just fine, but she knew they both were aware that she wasn't exactly believing herself. The darkness of the main projector room on Galactica should at least help mask some of the lie even if he could still hear it in her voice.

"Look," Apollo said, glaring at her, "you're worried that I'm not going to pull it out of the fire with some high-risk, retina-detaching move the way Starbuck would. Well, Kara, I'm sorry you're not suiting up. Because, believe me, everyone will feel so much better, me included, if you were riding along with us. But this isn't an ego trip. This is my job. And don't think for one moment that I will not get it done."

Gods. He really thought she had no faith in him. Well, she might as well seal the deal. "I hope so. Because we've got one shot. Don't frak it up by over thinking."

Seeing the look of devastation come across his face, she turned on heel and left him alone. When she reached the hall, she leaned herself up against the first out of the way nook and tried to catch her breath.

The memory of the first time she saw that look was haunting her. It was the day she had taken him on unofficially in the flight simulator at Academy, and he had wiped the floor with her. She had made him angry, and it pushed him to be a better pilot.

Thoughts of that day had been popping up at the most random times since she had first found out Lee was going to lead the squadron of Vipers into battle. She hadn't been sure of why until only moments before she asked Lee to stay after the briefing.

She smacked her fists against the wall in front of her face in frustration as she felt herself suddenly feel the desperate need to cry. It had been hard, but she had done what she came there to do. She had given him the motivation he would need to get the job done. Like always, the Fleet was in good hands.

The hands of a god to be precise.

* * *

Lee leaned against the bars of the brig and watched the little blonde woman who was driving her body to the extreme as she did push up after push up. He had no idea how someone who had found such a fitting niche to live her life in could look so sad. He knew if she wasn't such a brave person to the core, she would probably allow those tears that were welling in her eyes to fall.

Suddenly, he wanted her to know that he was there watching her. Maybe she could find comfort in his presence like she had done that day in the cemetery.

"This seems familiar." That had come out a lot smugger than he had intended.

She looked up at him as if he was the last thing she had ever imagined would be before her eyes. Hadn't someone told her that he had been ordered to attend the decommissioning?

"Captain Adama, sir," she said, finally standing up. The cocky grin he had always connected with her replaced the held-back tears. "Sorry I wasn't there to greet you with the rest of the squadron. Did they kiss your ass to your satisfaction?"

As much as he would have loved to tell her how good it was to hear her sarcasm, he chose to ignore it. "So what's the charge this time?"

She thought it over a moment before saying "Striking a superior asshole."

He felt a grin spread across his face even though he had been trying his best to stay serious. "I bet you've been waiting all day to say that one."

"Most of the afternoon." Smiling, she walked up to the bars and asked him, "So how long has it been?"

"Two years," he said shortly, knowing that this was just steering them to a topic he really didn't want to get into right now. He just wanted to bask in the fact that she was acting the way he could remember her from when Zak was still around.

"Two years? We must be getting old. Seems like the funeral-" Her eyes darted up to stare into his. "-was just a couple of months ago."

The look in her eyes made him pause. Was she talking about the fact that she had to bury the man she died or was she talking about what had happened between them after everyone else had gone?

As she continued talking, he suddenly realized what superior asshole she must have been referring to. He did his best to cover his shock from the image of her striking his father's best friend as it popped into his head.

And for the first time in two years, he felt relieved. The tension he had always felt around her suddenly faded away. For the first time, he realized that the distance between them had helped him smother those feelings he should never have even started feeling.

He would be gone off Galactica in a few days. Maybe the continued distance would get rid of his love for her completely.

Now what was she talking about?

Frak. Why had she brought up his father, the only other topic he didn't want to talk about?

As the tone between them started to become a little hostile, he found himself wondering why she always had to push him until he didn't know which end was up. Couldn't things just be simple with her?

Well, no matter. Things would get better when he was off this hunk of junk and there were miles of space between them.

* * *

Kara stared in confusion as Lee turned around in circles as he entered the bunkroom. She had seen a lot of jittery pilots in her days, but never Lee. It wasn't in his genetic makeup to be spooked. She watched as he let out a sigh of relief and sat down on his bunk. He looked exhausted in every sense of the term.

"Frak me! What happened to you?"

Lee jumped off the bed and made a motion to pull a gun from the holster around his belt that wasn't there.

Gods. He was tense. He couldn't even remember that he was in his dress blues and not his flight suit.

She pushed up off her bed and walked over to him. "It's just me. Relax. It's not like I'm a Cylon coming to get you."

"Not funny," Lee hissed as he sat down and tried to make his breathing return to normal.

"What's got you so wired? Because if I find out there is some source of caffeine still in this universe and I didn't know about it, shit is going to hit the fraking fan."

"No. It's not that. It's Ell-"

"What were you saying?"

She could see realization dawn on Lee's face as he realized he had gone too far. Whatever had scared him was also making him sloppy. "It's the XO's wife."

"She trying to kill you?"

"If you mean death by appealing to a man's sex-starved libido, then yes, she is definitely trying to kill me."

"No way! Ellen Tigh is hitting on you!"

"That's putting it lightly," Lee said as she slid off his coat, not even taking the time to hang it up. The piece of clothing ended up in a pile next to his bed as he stretched out on the bed again. "The woman practically molested me underneath the table while we were having dinner. With the President present, no less."

Kara's eyes widened as she imagined what Lee was referring to. Wow. The Old Man had been right. Ellen Tigh was pure evil. "Do you need me to protect you from her?"

"Frak off, Kara. She just made me jumpy. She didn't make me a coward that has to hide behind the local frak-up."

"Hey! I resent that." She walked over and sat down on Lee's bed. "I'm the galactic frak-up now. We're the only humans left in the universe."

"How could I forget?"

Kara sat in silence, staring down at Lee who was now hiding his eyes behind his hands. "Lee?"

"Please don't make fun of me anymore. I can't take it right now."

"I wasn't going to. I just wanted to know… well… did you like it?"

He threw his hands down to his sides and gave her a funny look. "What do you mean?"

Gods, she hated it when she got so curious about things she had no business knowing. "I mean, you must have been getting lonely, being all alone here in space. For one second, if you forgot that it was Tigh's wife, did you enjoy it?"

"No," he said resolutely. "Not for one second."

"Because it was Tigh's wife."

"No. Because it wasn't--" His eyes widened in horror at what he had been about to say.

"Wasn't?" she prompted.

"I am not talking about this anymore."

"Oh come on. You were about to tell me something. It's not good to let things sit on your chest."

He shook his head and she swore silently to herself. It was killing her not to know what he was going to say. Because she really wanted the words her wild imagination had cooked up to finish his sentence to be true.

She bit her lip and stared down at him. Come on, Lee. Do a girl a favor and not make this hard. Can't you just admit that you might have been saying that you didn't enjoy it because it wasn't me?

He sighed and sat up. "Because it was just about the worst scenario possible. Ellen Tigh. My father and President Roslin sitting a few feet away. Enjoying it wasn't even an option."

"Oh."

"Why? What did you think I was going to say?"

She had to think fast. "I thought that maybe you were about to admit that you actually had romantic feelings towards someone on this ship. We don't get enough of the tortured love gossip. It would have been nice."

"No such luck."

Yeah, tell me about it, she thought to herself.

* * *

Lee made his way across the crowded hangar bay. Since the second the shuttle of Secretary Roslin- make that President Roslin- had docked on Galactica, all he could think about was finding her. Somehow, his training in high stress military situations had given him a second chance. He was going to fix whatever had gone wrong.

He saw her working under her Viper just like he had thought she would be. She had grease smudges all over her face. For some reason he thought that was probably the best thing he had seen since… well… since way too long.

Yeah. If it was the last thing he did, he would make whatever was broken inside of her right again.

After all, he had already proven it could happen before. He would just have to not get scared and run like he had the first time.

* * *

"FRAK!" Kara yelled as the Cylon Raider sputtered to a dead silence.

She had almost had it. Power was up and running. She had pitch. She had yaw. Why the frak couldn't she get roll?

"FRAK!" she screamed again.

She could not die this way. The great Starbuck did not crash land on some filthy planet that wasn't even good enough for cockroaches to live on. She went out in a blaze of glory. She didn't suffocate to death when all the oxygen in an enemy aircraft ran out because she couldn't get fraking roll.

She punched the guts of the Raider and felt a satisfying ripple run through the ship around her. "Yeah, that's right! I'm talking to you, you putrid piece of crap!"

She brought the power back up with her left heel. This ship was going to be her saving grace. It was going to be her ticket back home to Galactica. She would be going home, and it would be taking her there.

Then she would be able to fix the mess she had made before leaving. She would train those nuggets to the point of exhaustion, but when she was done they would be the best pilots the Old Man had ever seen. Then maybe he could realize how much she had changed since Zak died. Then maybe he could look past his anger and see that she was dying inside with guilt.

Adama hadn't held any anger against Lee who so obviously had accused him falsely of pushing Zak to his death. He would forgive her eventually. He had to.

She was holding on to that thought just as tightly as she was holding on to the belief that the Old Man had sent someone after her. There had to be Vipers in the air right now searching this planet for her. He might have insinuated that he was washing his hands of her, but he wouldn't actually leave her for dead. They had gone through too much together.

Don't forget Lee.

Lee already knew the mistakes you've made. You told him weeks ago, and he still chose to talk to you. He still chose to treat you like you were worthwhile. He wouldn't let his father be stubborn enough to let you go without at least attempting to save you.

Lee cared for you too much, Kara.

"What the frak are you saying?" she asked herself quietly as she fiddled with the stringy tendons that were near her right hand. "He cares for you? How do you know that he cares for you? You're nothing more than his brother's old girlfriend."

Her hand faltered as she realized what she had said. His brother's old girlfriend. Not the other way around. She identified Zak as being Lee's brother. She didn't think of Lee as just being Zak's brother. When had she started thinking of Zak only as an offshoot of Lee?

That was another thought for another day. Preferably one in which she wasn't marooned on a planet with only three of the four fundamentals of flying at her disposal.

"You will roll for me," she said, punching the Raider again.

* * *

Lee sat in the Viper that had been so brutally pinned to the launch tube wall. He knew that Galactica's crew would have the tube sealed off and would be making their way towards the wrecked Vipers within minutes. He wished he didn't have to wait for them to let him out before talking to Kara.

He had no fraking clue why she hadn't left him behind. It was what they had both been trained to do in a time of crisis. Each pilot's life was worth the same as the next, no matter who it is. No matter whose son they are. She could have easily taken the one imminent casualty that would only slightly hurt the Fleet and multiplied it into two casualties which would devastate the little bit of progress they had made so far.

Her words as she screamed at him to shut up and hold still echoed through his head. He had ordered her to leave him behind, but she hadn't listened. Seeing as he was a Captain and she was a Lieutenant, he had the right to ground her for disobeying a direct order. But somehow he felt the fact that she had saved his life would make that a little too hard on both of them.

But still his mind kept going back to why she couldn't leave him behind. It insinuated that she thought he was too important to sacrifice.

He wasn't. When it came down to it, he wasn't even a part of Galactica. The fact that he was the CAG meant nothing. Any one of the other Lieutenants on board could do just as good of a job. So why had she risked her life, the one that was definitely not worthy of sacrifice, to keep him alive?

Why the frak did she do it?

As his cockpit suddenly flew open and he was surrounded by crewmen, he resolved himself to ask her the second he was free.

But then chaos erupted as he heard the shouts of the XO echoing through the tube. He was berating Starbuck for doing such a stupid move, and she was shouting back at him that if he cared for William Adama as much as everyone thought, he wouldn't be asking her that.

So, she had made the choice because of his father?

Her eyes locked with his for a second before she turned back to yelling at Colonel Tigh. The emotion he saw in them made his whole body stiffen.

She looked like she was about to cry. Which made him think that maybe it had something to do with Zak. That was the only thing that seemed to make her cry these days.

Because if it wasn't about Zak, then there was a lot of unspoken confliction stirring up between them that he couldn't just attribute to the stress of having his brother's memory hanging over them. He suddenly remembered the confliction he had felt all those years where he had tried to come to terms with Zak's death and with his feelings of guilt because he had loved the woman he couldn't dare to dream loved him back.

She had killed him. She had passed him when he should have failed. His death was no one's fault but her own.

Those words didn't seem even a little bit right. She might want to take all the guilt on her own shoulders, but that's not where it belonged.

He watched as she stomped away from Tigh. Asking her why he was so important would have to wait.

Maybe he could ask her on the day that the Cylons were finally beaten. Then they might be able to face up to the fact that they were both important to one another for reasons that made no sense.

But frak, didn't those reasons feel right?

* * *

Kara stared through the scope on her gun as the pandemonium her gunshot had caused slowly died down. At first, she had been angry at Lee for screwing up her one chance to get rid of the humanity's last real criminal. After swearing for a minute straight, she had calmed down and taken a look at the scene unfolding below her.

Lee was talking to the prisoners and Zarek. Whatever he was saying was keeping the situation calm. She looked at Cally, who lay bleeding on the cot in the cell. She was going to be okay. The kid was tough. Hell. It looked like she had bit some prisoner's ear off. Exaggerations of what had happened would make her the second toughest woman left in the Fleet.

She heard someone yelling into the ear piece about the fact that there still was no medical attention available. Kara shrugged it off. Like she had said, Cally was tough. She'd tough it out until someone got here.

The next person she focused on from her vantage point was Zarek, who was sitting crouched on the floor. He looked like he was crying. Pathetic. Lee shouldn't have saved him.

Why did Lee save him? She couldn't remember one reason why he might have sympathized with the known terrorist. Lee had always seemed the type of guy who ran the straight and narrow. Life was black and white. There was no such thing as grey.

But saving Tom Zarek was as grey as it got.

She trained her sight onto Lee even as the Marine team leader started screaming for her to get down to prison level to help contain the residents of the Astral Queen. He was pretty beaten up, and she could practically taste the mental fatigue written all over his face. Whatever Zarek had said to him, whatever had been done to him, it wasn't just going to go away when they got him off this ship.

Lee wasn't invincible. The wounds on his head where he must have been so brutally beaten practically screamed it at her. He could be hurt. He could be killed.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

Kara felt herself drop the gun and go running. They needed her down on the prison deck. Her sudden urge to follow orders had nothing to do with having to reassure herself that Lee was all right.

* * *

Lee walked away from the Viper, empty pill canister in hand, laughing to himself. She had always been cranky when she was tired.

He paused as he realized he had no real right to know that. It had been something Zak had mentioned in passing one of the few times he had talked to him during the time his brother had dated Kara. She had been on the warpath because her instructing schedule hadn't given her more than two hours sleep at a time. Zak had told him about it, and somehow Lee had remembered.

One of these days, he would have to stop kidding himself. These little details about Kara weren't something he just remembered out of the blue. He had committed them to memory. He had held on tight to every little detail he could get about Kara Thrace from the moment he discovered her as a little blonde thing in the middle of a briefing room of nuggets.

She was fascinating.

He turned back to sneak one last glance at her. She had her back to him, already in a rather intense discussion with the young Specialist named Cally. They were presumably debating about how her Viper was running and whether its shortcomings were the pilot or the crew's fault. Without warning, Kara turned and smiled at him, giving a mock salute.

He saluted her back.

He felt a voice in his head nagging him as to why he let her get away with the things she did to him. She made his life on Galactica as the CAG twice as hard as it should be. Yes, he didn't know any of the pilots. Yes, he still wasn't sure he was qualified to lead them. And yes, he felt like an idiot because he was still getting lost in the winding corridors of the Battlestar.

But shouldn't the one person he knew be helping to ease the burden? She was his friend, wasn't she?

Yet she caused him so much grief. He just stepped back and let her. She was right when she said he was trying to be her friend and not her CAG. He should be sticking with the basics. He didn't know these pilots. He had no obligation to make their lives easy.

But it was different with Kara, isn't it?

You know her, don't you? And you consider her your friend even if neither of you has ever said it out loud? And you want her to be more, don't you? That's why you let her walk all over you.

"No," he hissed as he started stalking out of the hangar bay. "No. You put all that behind you when Zak died. She's just a friend. A friend and one of your pilots."

He had always been a bad liar.

* * *

Kara stepped away from Cally and looked at her wounded bird. She had run it into the ground during the 200 or so launches she had done in the past five days. It would only get worst, too. She should just be grateful that she was still able to get the Mark II into the air. It hadn't seen this kind of beating since the first Cylon War.

And why the frak was she thinking about that at a time like this?

"Because you're in the middle of the second Cylon War, you idiot," she hissed at herself.

"Lieutenant Thrace." She turned her attention back to the demure Specialist who was one of the few people she respected enough to allow unlimited access to her Viper. "Um… I was just wondering… well… don't you think you might have been a little too hard on the Captain? He only wanted you to take a few pills."

"I'm going to let that little comment slide because I know you're just as tired and rundown as I am."

Cally's eyes went wide as she realized how out of place her comment had been. "I'm sorry."

"Not a problem. Because I'm so tired and I obviously don't know any better, I'm going to answer you." Kara gave her a wry smile. "I am hard on Captain Adama because he needs someone to be. He has lived his life too easily, riding on the fact that he's the son of a military commander."

She cringed inside. She couldn't believe she was taking up the excuse that all those ridiculous idiots in Academy had used whenever they had to explain why they felt it necessary to give Lee a hard time. But she couldn't go and tell Cally that she was hard on Lee because she knew he was going to make a damn fine CAG as soon as he accepted that the job was his.

Cally seemed to accept her lie of an answer and went off to use her thirty-three minutes wisely. Maybe the kid would actually be allowed a small nap this time.

Shrugging her flight suit off, Kara made the decision to work on her bird while those damn pills began to kick in. Soon she would be too jumpy to help the crew with their burden.

The burden of living.

That was the worst.

It was hard to keep going on this fraking thirty-three minute cycles.

That was really why she had been so hard on Lee. Sure, it had partially been because she knew he needed someone to shock him into doing his job right. Because men like Lee were cut out to lead. They just needed a little instruction from time to time. She had learned that in her time with the Old Man.

But the Old Man had never worried her as much as Lee did. Which brought her back to her real reasoning behind the screaming and yelling. If she kept him either angry at her words or laughing at her stupidity, then he wouldn't start to wonder if maybe it would all be easier just to give up and let the Cylons take him this cycle.

She was well aware that she was clinging to him. He was a thread to the innocent, naïve life she had led before losing Zak. He reminded her of those days in the Academy when she still believed she could raise herself up to the highest levels in the military.

And there was something in the way he smiled at her when he thought she wasn't looking.

Something that she couldn't put words to. All she knew was that little smile meant to go unnoticed was what kept her from surrendering to the temptation of letting a Cylon take one well-aimed shot at her.

* * *

Lee was screaming orders at the Marines that were filling down onto the prison deck. He couldn't understand why Galactica hadn't gotten a medical team here yet. The young Specialist who had been so brave and fought her captor so hard was in needless pain.

He ripped an ear piece out of the nearest Marine's ear. "Galactica! Where the frak is the med team?"

"They are en route," came back the stiff answer.

Lee groaned and threw the headset down. He really wished that Dee was behind the communications panel and not here on the Astral Queen. He still had no idea why she was here. She had no real purpose.

Turning back, he stopped to look at Dee, who was holding Cally's hand tightly in hers. "How are you…" His voice cut off as he saw the young girl wince in pain.

"She's holding up, Captain," Dee said with a smile. "She's from Galactica."

Lee nodded. That was the sentiment he had heard from a lot of his pilots. They thought they were a tougher breed than the other Battlestars' enlisted and non-enlisted crew. From what he had seen, everything they thought was true. The people he was surrounded with were as tough as they came.

Speaking of tough, he wondered where Kara was. The shot that had been intended for Zarek would have been right on the mark if Lee hadn't pushed him out of the way. He didn't know anyone else who had that kind of accuracy except for her.

So she was on the Astral Queen. Why hadn't she come down to the deck level to help him keep things in control? Not that he really expected her too. She had already proven in their short time together that she didn't look out for anyone but herself. One second she was in a good mood and doing her best to make him laugh. The next she was screaming at him to shut up and do his job.

"Damnit, Lee," he muttered to himself as he started walking the length of the prison deck corridor again in order to make sure that everything was running smoothly. "You know why she isn't down here. You just saved the life of the fraking terrorist who tore a divide in Sagittarian society. She's disgusted."

Lee still wasn't sure why he had done it. All he knew was it felt like the right thing to do. He hadn't followed his instincts like that in a long, long time. Usually when he did, it never ended well. So he had learned to ignore his instincts and follow his head which told him what was expected of him, what was the right thing to do.

It seemed his opinion on his instincts was right. He had saved Zarek and lost Kara in the process.

It never ended well.

"Lee!" He turned as he heard her scream and barely had time to duck as she launched her fist at his face. "What the frak did you think you were doing? I had my shot!"

"Your shot wasn't needed. I had the situation under control."

She flipped the ridiculous helmet the Marines must have forced her to wear off her head and glared at him. "Do you call getting the best Specialist we have shot in the side having the situation under control?

And suddenly he was glad to be arguing with her. It meant he hadn't lost her after all.

* * *

Kara continued screaming at her asshole of an Executive Officer. Why the frak was he screwing with her when he knew the Old Man had practically ordered her not to leave Lee behind? Granted, she hadn't planned on it even before it had been an unofficial official order, but Tigh didn't know that.

Tigh's continued yelling that she could have gotten herself killed for no good reason suddenly made her want to cry. It wasn't like she didn't know the reality of the situation. She knew the day she signed up to be a Viper pilot that her life would exist from one close call to the next. One of these days the call wouldn't be a little too close and she would be gone.

But that wasn't why her emotions were starting to overwhelm her.

Her eyes locked onto Lee's where he stood in front of his Viper. There were noticeable rips and tears to his flight uniform that must have happened upon their hard impact with the hanger tube deck. He looked genuinely shell shocked for the first time since their whole race had been systematically exterminated by the toasters. She knew it wasn't because of his near-death experience either.

She would bet all her money on the fact that he was relieving her last confession in the hangar bay before they took off. He was wondering why she had found the courage to save him when she was too much of a coward to do what was right and save Zak.

Not even she could give him an answer to that.

All she had thought in those few moments up in the sky when she believed she was going to lose Lee was she couldn't let it happen again. She couldn't let the Old Man's only son be taken away. Another Adama was not going to die when she could save him.

She returned to yelling at Tigh. She didn't want to think about how close she had come to losing him.

And she didn't want to dwell on the reasons why losing Lee seemed like just about the worst thing that could have happened to her.

* * *

Lee held the phone out to his father and listened in horror as the search for Kara was terminated. President Roslin's words rang through his head. He respected this woman. He trusted this woman. He believed this woman.

And yet he didn't want to give up looking for their missing pilot.

He couldn't give up on her. And he couldn't understand why his father would either. Grasping on to the one thing he had managed to understand from the President's tirade, he turned to his father, "I want you to know. I think she's wrong. I think we have come to terms with what happened to Zak."

"I haven't."

His father's voice was cold and extremely straightforward like always. Of course his father hadn't come to terms with it, he scolded himself. Only weeks ago neither one of them had had any clue about Kara's part in Zak's death and Lee was still blaming his father entirely for the accident.

He turned to leave, knowing somewhere deep inside him that his father didn't really want to stop searching for Kara. If he was honest with himself, they both loved Kara more than they loved one another. She was their pillar of strength.

The thought of his father loving a woman he had only known for a few years over the son he had known from birth made him pause and turn back. His father was looking at him expectantly. "I need to know something. Why did you do this? Why did we do this? Is it for Kara? For Zak? For what?"

"Kara was family," his father started out. The casual use of the past tense struck Lee to the core. His father had really given up on her. "You do whatever you have to do. Sometimes you break the rules."

"And if it was me down there instead?"

His father narrowed his eyes and hissed, "You don't have to ask that."

Lee's mind flashed to the moments he had seen Kara with his father. They acted like family. He treated her like a daughter. Her relationship with him was the polar opposite of Lee's. There was genuine love in the eyes of both Kara and William Adama when they spoke to or about one another. He didn't have that.

"Are you sure?"

"If it were you… we'd never leave."

The words made Lee's eyes sting. His father's tone had changed to an open, brutal honesty that he had never heard before. He gave his father a short nod of understanding before turning and leaving like he had first intended.

His father had said when someone is family, then you do what you have to do. You break the rules. Lee had always stuck to the rules for all his life. Sometimes he thought it was his only downfall.

Well, not this time. His father was right. Kara was family. And family meant more than anything else these days.

He had to get to the CIC within a few minutes to prepare for the FTL launch out of the system. There had to be something he could think up by then, some way to get this rescue mission reinstated, some way to buy Kara a little more time, some way to keep the Fleet from jumping away and letting her die.

But there was nothing. As hard as he concentrated, as much as he tried, there was no solution. He had no way of rescuing her short of commandeering a Viper and going rogue. He was two steps away from running out of the CIC and doing just that when Dee announced Dradis contact.

The bastards who took Kara away from him. Even if there was nothing he could do to save her, there was that.

There was revenge.

* * *

"Hey."

She froze mid screw underneath the Viper that had been her personal punching bag for the last half hour and wheeled herself out from underneath the machine. It hadn't been in her head. He was really there. She found herself wondering if he was a ghost.

Then he reached out and grabbed her hand, helping her to her feet. The breath she had been holding left her lungs in a rush as she realized that she could finally dare to hope he had made it out of that horrible Cylon attack alive. "I thought you were dead," she spit out.

Nice, Thrace. Way to tell him that you were praying to the gods harder than you had ever prayed in order to ask that they keep you in their protection. Very smooth phrasing.

He smirked at her, though, obviously not offended by her blunt words. "Well I thought you were in hack."

"It's goo-" She cleared her throat as she felt tears of joy begin to choke up inside her. "It's good to be wrong."

At least that one sounded a lot more like what she was really feeling.

"Well, you should be used to it by now."

All right. Now she had a dilemma. She either wanted to pull him into a massive hug at the sight of that arrogant grin on his face or she wanted to deck him so that it would be wiped clean off. She decided neither option was plausible if she wanted to stay out of the brig. "Everyone had a skill."

Then they bridged into silence, their eyes bearing into each other. She suddenly felt naked. Why was he staring at her so intently? And why did it remind her of the way Zak used to look at her after they… well, the morning after.

And just like that he broke the intimacy of their contact by looking away. "So… so how… how go the repairs?"

Was the perfect Captain Adama actually struggling for words? Suddenly things were looking up. She hadn't had such a promising target for her taunts and jokes since Helo. Frak. Don't think about him now. He wasn't here anymore. Focus on the fact that Lee was here. "On track. Another hour and she'll be ready to launch."

And suddenly the first taunt popped into her head. Yeah. Things were looking up even though there had just been an armageddon tearing its way through humanity.

"So I guess you're the new CAG now."

* * *

Lee watched her walk away as if it meant nothing that she had just admitted how little she really thought of him. She had seen him fly too many times for them to count. She knew what he could do. And still she thought he was going to blow it.

And yet you still love her.

Gods. He really wished that little voice in his head would just stop. It was constantly nagging at him, pointing out that Kara could do no wrong. He would always have these forbidden feelings for her even if she was holding a gun to his head and screaming if he didn't give it up she would shoot him. He would let himself die.

Oh. Well, that was a nice mental picture.

Time to stop drowning in sorrow and start thinking up every possible angle for this mission. He had gotten them into this jam by wasting all that fuel trying to save a woman who could so obviously save herself every time.

The fact that his faith in her abilities had never wavered, not once, was too ironic for him to even comprehend.

* * *

Kara was taken aback as Lee told her not to even start as their conversation shifted to the topic of his father. She stared at him through the bars of the cell she had been calling home all day. Gods. She had forgotten how infuriating Zak's older brother could be.

"How long are you doing to do this?" she hissed quietly, knowing that there were plenty of crewmen around somewhere who would know what she and the Commander's elder son were arguing about. Zak's death was not a topic that was openly discussed on Galactica, but it wasn't one that was kept hidden.

"I'm not doing anything," he hissed back.

"He lost his son, Lee."

She felt herself freeze at her casual use of his name. She had tried so hard for the past two years to keep him at a distance. To only refer to him as Captain Adama. To not admit to anyone, including herself, that he was more than that.

His words cut into her thoughts. "And who's responsible for that?"

She stared at his face as he looked at her. It was so hardened and cold. Not a thing like the pretty flyboy she had seen in Academy. Not a thing like the busy man who had taken time to meet his baby brother's new girlfriend. Not the man who had held her as her grief took over the day she buried her life along with the man she loved.

He had changed so much from the Lee she had known. The one she had grown to care for in all the smallest, inconspicuous ways, he was gone. Instead, there was this tough, cynical military pilot who didn't seem to understand one thing about human nature anymore.

"Same old Lee," she choked out. "You haven't changed either."

"Zak was my brother!" he screamed.

The words cut through her and made her realize she had been right. Lee was gone. "What was he to me? Nothing?"

"That's not what I meant. And you know it."

Suddenly she couldn't even bear to look at the man she had been dying to see for over two years. "You know what? You should go." She tightened her fists. "I'm getting the urge to hit another superior asshole."

He gave her a smile that cut to the bone and walked away without another word.

Gods. That had hurt.

* * *

Lee laughed as Cally pulled him into a hug. She really was his favorite deckhand by far. And for two seconds, he actually let himself believe he could tell her that. But then the memory of the fraternization policy kicked in and he pulled back from her. He couldn't tell her. There was no way.

His eyes rested on where Kara stood in front of him. If he couldn't tell Cally how much he liked her, then he certainly couldn't tell this phenomenal woman how much he loved her.

"Apollo, you magnificent bastard! That was one hell of a piece of flying, and I couldn't have done it better myself."

Her words erased the last bits of anger he had kept trapped up inside, but he wasn't going to admit that to her. In fact, he probably deserved to make her say it at least ten more times just to make sure it was committed to memory properly. "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."

"I said I couldn't have done it better myself."

Nope. Twice was definitely enough. Tipping his drink to her, he smiled, "Well, thank you."

"I had my doubts."

He wondered why she thought he hadn't picked up on that. She practically told him there was no way she could count on him to do the job that she was destined for. Okay. Maybe the anger wasn't totally gone.

He gave her a small nod. "So did I." Okay. That surprised her. This would be more fun if he was actually the type of person who enjoyed hurting others. He had never really gotten the hang of that sadly. "I wasn't sure that crazy ass plan of yours could even possibly work."

That made her laugh. Gods, he had missed hearing that. It seemed like she hadn't laughed for him in way too long.

"You deserve this."

He snapped out of his little daydream to stare down at the cigar she held out to him. He recognized it immediately. His father had given it to her as a way of saying he was sorry for his harsh words after he found out about Zak.

Oh gods, Lee. Don't think about Zak right now. You're too happy to think about Zak.

Frak. Was it wrong to think that? He didn't know.

He turned to talk to a few of the Specialists who were laughing and joking around him. He really should try to get to know these people better. They probably thought he was a god for what he had done since they didn't really know him. Because it seemed like all the people who knew him had figured he couldn't do it.

Okay. Anger still present.

He laughed as the pretty girl next to him actually called him a god to his face. Maybe he was finally living up to the call sign Kara had unintentionally branded him with back in Academy.

As the people continued to surround him with their congratulations, his mind went back to the vision of Kara laughing.

That little moment had made all the trouble he had gone through worth it.

* * *

Kara groaned and balled up the paper she had been writing on, flinging it across the bunkroom. It rolled around the floor next to the twenty or so other balled up mistakes. She was suddenly regretting being such a coward. It would be so much easier, and probably a lot less wasteful, if she just called him up and ask him how he was doing.

She knew exactly where he would be. With his mother back on Caprica.

Where else would one go to mourn the one year anniversary of your baby brother's death?

Sighing, she put the pen back down to a fresh piece of paper and tried again.

Dear Lee,

Could she actually use such a familiar greeting? She hadn't talked to him in almost a year. Frak it. She didn't care.

I just wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you on this hard day.

Hard day? What the frak was that?

I just wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you. Actually, I've thought about you a lot. Wondering how you were doing on Atlantia and whether you were still being the quiet kid in the corner who was phenomenally better than anyone else.

Okay. That didn't sound like she had been stalking him in Academy. Nope. Not at all.

We shouldn't have let things go like we did, Lee. I didn't know you before Zak, but I know you now. And I never thanked you for what you did for me that day in the cemetery when we buried

Buried? How heartless was that?

when we were mourning together. It meant a lot to me then. It still means a lot to me. Why didn't we fraking keep in touch?

Great. Now she was swearing at him.

We could have been each other's support system. You could have taught me how to fit in on a Battlestar. You know this is my first assignment off planet. I wasn't used to having so many pilots like me within reach. It would have been nice to know if you had gone through the same thing.

Okay. Enough rambling. Close it up.

I miss you, Lee. Love, Kara.

Love? Love? Where the frak had that come from?

And I miss you? She hadn't known Lee long enough to miss him.

But for some reason, she knew that she did. She did miss him.

"Lieutenant Thrace, you have a call," Dee's voice rang through the bunkroom over the private intercom. The phone on the wall next to the table she was writing on started to ring.

"Lieutenant Thrace speaking."

There was only dead air. If this was that damn annoying Raptor ECO, Karl something or another, annoying her, she was going to kill him.

"Hello? Is there anyone fraking there?"

Still no answer. And then she remembered that it had been Dee's voice informing her of the call and not the usual voice of Second Petty Officer Tanner.

"Damnit, Dee. If you even cut off another call for me, I'm going to personally march myself down to CIC and show you how it's done."

She heard the line cut off completely and set the receiver down. Her eyes fell on the finished letter in front of her. Groaning, she balled the paper up and chucked it across the room.

Time for attempt number twenty-two.

In the back of her mind, she knew that it wouldn't be successful. And neither would attempt twenty-three or twenty-four. She could write a million letters, and they would never be good enough to send.

"Lieutenant Thrace to Hangar Bay B."

Groaning, she threw the pad of paper and pen onto her bunk. The letter that would never get written would have to wait until later.

* * *

These were the things that ran through his head when he first realized that it was Kara standing before him.

"My gods. She is the most beautiful sight left in this world."

"I was wrong. Hygiene has never looked so fine."

"Shouldn't I feel guilty for staring?"

"Zak would be so proud of her."

"I wish that I could just smuggle her away to the bunkroom. It was bound to be empty. The whole Fleet is on this stupid luxury liner."

"She looks breakable. Vulnerable. Not like herself."

"Everyone is watching her. Are they watching me? Are they wondering what I'm doing talking to her? Do they know what I'm saying? Do they know how ridiculous I sound? Do they know what I'm thinking? Oh gods, I hope they don't know what I'm thinking."

"Wow."

"I need ambrosia."

"Wonder what my father thinks of her dress."

"Frak."

But the thought that shook him up the most was "She did this for me and only me."

* * *

Kara stared at the newly made mound of earth that held the man she loved deep inside. She still couldn't believe that Zak was gone. Just two weeks ago, he had come bursting into her room after his little surprise visit with his brother, declaring his never-ending love for her. He was so vibrant and alive.

She felt the tears before she realized they had begun to fall once more.

Frak. She hadn't wanted to cry while he was still there. He probably thought she didn't know he was standing over her, watching. Damnit. Why did he have to be so protective of her? Hadn't it been enough that William Adama had seen fit to offer her a job as a pilot on his Battlestar as soon as she was done going through officer training? Now his oldest son was making sure that she didn't completely self-destruct.

If only they knew what she had done.

"I know you're there, Lee."

She wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Are you going to be all right?"

She knew he meant that question as one friend looking out for another, but his words only served to anger her.She shrugged his touch off and took a step away. "The man I intended to marry just died, Lee. He died in a fire caused by the Viper I taught him to fly. No. I am definitely not going to be all right."

Gods. She wanted to tell him how it had all been her fault. How Zak had died because she passed him in Basic Flight when he had failed the test in every single way. How the night before she had told him she wasn't sure marriage was the right thing for them to be doing at this time.

But when she looked up at Lee's face and saw only understanding, she knew that she could never tell him.

He was the last piece of Zak she had. She couldn't take it if she lost that right now.

"I'm sorry, Lee. I didn't mean that."

He didn't say a word. Instead, he just took her hand in his and squeezed.

Together, they stared at the grave of the man they both loved more than any other.

* * *

Lee felt Kara sink into his arms. He had only asked her to dance with him. He hadn't expected her to show so much enthusiasm. In fact, he was pretty sure that their closeness was against some Fleet policy.

But frak it. For once, he couldn't give a care about what policy dictated.

For the first time in days, Zak's voice echoed through his head. "How about love, Lee? Do you love her?"

His brother had asked him that day on Atlantia if he loved Kara. He had lied to him. He had told him there was no way he could love the same woman that his brother was so infatuated with. In his heart, he knew that he had loved her with everything he had at that moment.

And now?

Now he loved her even more.

And it scared him to death. Because he could never have her. There was just too much baggage.

Dr. Baltar interrupted him before he could come up with a reason why the baggage didn't matter. It seemed Lee wasn't the only one who wanted to dance with Kara. He gave the good doctor a smile of relief. If he could just get some distance between himself and Kara, then maybe he wouldn't end up doing anything stupid.

He still looked at hopefully. If she said no to Baltar like he thought she would, then he can blame whatever happened on her. Maybe the guilt of loving Kara would be less that way.

But she surprised him by slipping out of his hold and into Baltar's. He stood there looking like an idiot as she assumed the same position with the doctor that she had just been in with him.

He had obviously misread what she was feeling.

And he wasn't afraid to admit to himself how much that hurt.

* * *

Kara nervously watched the door. "Why isn't he here yet?"

"Why are you so concerned?" Zak asked, taking her hand in his.

"Because he's the person you look up to the most," she said, biting her lip. "If he tells us he thinks we're making a mistake, we have no chance of convincing your parents that this isn't completely insane."

Zak touched the side of her face lightly. "We're not insane."

She returned his reassuring smile before her eyes drifted the bar.

And there he stood. Lee Adama. Still as much of a pretty flyboy as ever.

"Lee!" she yelled, waving to get his attention.

He froze for a second before making a motion that she guessed was a return wave. She watched as he made his way over to their table. He wasn't acting like she was used to, keeping his eyes low to the ground and not even taking a second glance at the pretty girls who were so blatantly staring him down.

By the time he got to their table, though, the odd behavior had ended. "Again, I find myself answering a cryptic summons from my little brother."

His laugh was a welcome sound to her ears. Which is why she let down her guard and just basked in the familiarity of the situation. "He doesn't have a new girlfriend this time," she said with a laugh, grabbing Zak's hand in hers.

Oh gods. Why had she just said that? She thought she had decided she was going to ease into the news they had to tell Lee.

"No, I don't," Zak said. He tore his eyes away from hers in order to look at Lee. "I have a fiancée."

She choked on her drink at exactly the same moment Lee did. Why did Zak just have to blurt it out like that?

"What did you just say?"

"I asked Kara to marry me yesterday, and she said yes."

She watched as Lee nodded but didn't say a word. She didn't blame him. The news had been sort of sudden considering he hadn't known how much time Zak was spending with her. Granted, War College probably gave him little to no time to do anything other than study and fly. But he still could have tried to make a little time to figure out what his baby brother was doing with his life.

Maybe if Lee had made a little more time, Zak would be better at flying a Viper. As it stood now, there was no way he was going to pass the examinations at the end of the term.

She found herself wondering why Lee hadn't said anything else yet. He was still just sitting there, nodding and staring off into space. Didn't he think it was a good idea? Oh gods. She didn't know what she would do if he started going on about how odd a match it was. As if she hadn't realized how crazy it was for a girl who grew up in the slums of Caprica to be marrying the son of a Battlestar Commander.

"Congratulations."

She smiled. He had finally said it. That meant he was okay with the idea, didn't it?

"I think we need more ambrosia."

Before she could protest, Zak was already halfway to the bar. She was alone with Lee for the first time that she could remember. What the frak was she supposed to say now? Her mind zeroed in on his congratulations. Why had it sounded so fake?

She stared at him for a moment as he purposefully looked anywhere but up at her. "So, you didn't exactly sound thrilled."

"Well, you can only imagine."

Her worst fear was true. Lee didn't think she was good enough to be part of his family. She couldn't let him know how much that hurt. Time for her trademark sarcasm. That always kept the pain from showing. "Yeah. The baby boy of one of the greatest Viper pilots in the history of the Twelve Colonies marrying the trailer trash of Caprica. Sometimes even I don't believe it."

"No. It's not that. It's just… it seemed to me like you had more sense than that."

"I don't understand."

"Well. I assumed that after you finished your assignment as a flight instructor you would be going to War College to obtain an official placement out in the field."

Her mind drifted back to the distant memory of a time when she had dreamed of just that. Saying frak you to the flight instructor life and being a Viper pilot on some distant Battlestar with the man sitting in front of her as her wingman. Gods, she was glad she had never told anyone about that.

She realized that Lee was still talking. "-there's no way Zak's going to make it through Academy. So then, what is he going to do when his wife is stationed on a ship orbiting another planet?"

Something suddenly occurred to her. He had laid out all of the worries she had had in the past few weeks within the last minute. Things that had taken her way too long to come to grips with, and he had just verbalized them like that. "How much thought have you put into this, Lee?"

She saw him pale and start subtly searching the room, presumably for Zak. It gave her a good opportunity to deal with why she was being so defensive. It wasn't that she was afraid of Lee disapproving. No, with her illustrious past, she practically expected it.

What she hadn't expected was how hard it was to talk to him about her relationship with Zak and why she had agreed to marry him. She had thought her reasons were foolproof until this moment with Lee sitting across from her.

Why wasn't Zak back yet? She started scanning the bar for him just like Lee had. Why did Zak always disappear when she needed him most?

She glanced at Lee and the color drained from her face as she realized that he was staring at her. Breaking eye contact, she focused on the new addition to her left hand. This little band of silver meant so much to so many people. She had never understood it.

"How has instructing been going for you?"

His question gave her the relief she had been praying for. This was something that she would have no trouble talking about. "Oh gods. You wouldn't believe the nuggets they send my way. I don't remember ever being that green. The other day one of my students asked me when they were going to be shown how to do all the rolls and flips that the experienced pilots knew. I told him by the time he graduated from my class, he wouldn't need anyone to show him. He would be so good that he would figure it out himself."

She felt herself smiling. She might hate the flight instructor job when she saw those she graduated with moving on to bigger and better missions in the sky. But sometimes… sometimes, she really felt like she was making a difference, teaching these nuggets how to survive.

"There was this one time, Lee, where one of my nuggets told me that he thought he was just as good of a pilot as I was. I told him he hadn't even seen me fly, but the little bastard just kept at it. I guess it serves me right for letting this kids think I was just another one of them. Anyway, I shoved his sorry ass in a simulator and spent the next half hour decimating his poor little virtual Viper."

Zak returned to the table, and she gave him a small smile. "I was just telling Lee about the time I shoved you into a flight simulator and showed you how it was done."

* * *

His father's suggestion rang through Lee's head long after William Adama had returned to his post in the CIC.

"You got to lose control. Let your instincts take over."

His father wanted him to let go? He didn't understand what he was asking.

Lee had let himself go for one second the night before. He had let his instincts take control and had found Kara secure in his arms. Stares and whispered comments were ignored. Feelings were felt.

And then life served him up another frak you.

She didn't even hesitate to move on.

Boxing with his father had always helped him work out his aggression, but this time he really held back. He wanted to let go and just let the man who was making his life so damn difficult for no reason he could see cry out in submission. But instead he found himself on the floor having been knocked around by life and by his father for too damn long.

Control issues, his father said. He had control issues.

Well, he could agree with that. The only problem was he didn't have a problem with too much control. He had a problem with not enough control.

When it came to Kara, he had none. He lost every semblance of control when she was close enough to touch, to smell, to taste. She assaulted his five senses at once and threw all coherent thoughts in his head far, far away.

He ripped his boxing gloves off and tossed them into a corner.

He had control issues.

But it was nothing a punching bag couldn't fix.

At least, he hoped.

* * *

Kara groaned as she calmly instructed a few of her students that if they didn't want to end up in the brig, they were going to have to learn how to control their liquor. These kids had promise if only they could get their priorities straight.

Oh gods. Had she actually just thought that?

She smiled at the waitress who was walking past before grabbing her bottle off the bar. Women who reduced themselves to wearing tight clothing in order to get a few extra bucks disgusted her. There was so much more they could be doing that didn't involve losing every ounce of self-respect they had.

Her eyes locked on the table where Zak was sitting. He wasn't alone anymore. His brother must have finally showed up. The jerk had kept them waiting long enough. So he was Zak's hero. She didn't care. No one kept Starbuck waiting.

She marched over to the table, catching the tail end of their conversation.

"-one administering tests to me at any point. She just helps me with my flight simulations."

"And boy do you need it," she said with a laugh.

Her jaw dropped as Zak's brother turned around to look at her.

No way. No fraking way.

Zak's brother was the pilot she had flown against in the simulator in those first few months of Academy. The only one who had ever given her a challenge. The one who was christened Apollo mostly because of her.

She had no clue that the mighty Apollo was an Adama. That explained a lot.

At the same time, it explained nothing at all. Because suddenly, everything she had heard about Lee Adama made no sense. She didn't have time to listen to gossip, but this one had been hard to avoid. The whole Academy had been buzzing since practically the day she started with talk of Battlestar Galactica Commander William Adama's oldest son who was supposedly riding on Daddy's coattails.

The man she had flown against definitely had the chops to be in the Viper program. He wasn't there for any reason but his own gods-given talent.

"Hi. I'm Kara," she said, taking a seat next to Zak.

"But you can call her god," Zak quipped smiling at her.

She rolled her eyes at his casual use of her typical first greeting to a new class of nuggets. "Or Starbuck. That's what I'm commonly referred to as."

"Lee," he said, still looking rather shell-shocked. Come to think of it, why was he looking so surprised? What was there for him to be surprised about?

"Most people call my brother, Apollo," Zak said with a smirk.

She found herself resenting the fact that he couldn't have told her that a few minutes earlier. At least then she would have had time to prepare.

In the back of her mind, she found herself wondering why this new development had thrown her off so much. What did it matter if Zak's brother was the one man she had considered her equal? What if he was the one guy she wished there had been more time to get to know during her Viper training? What if the pretty boy was the person she had always secretly wished would someday be her wingman when she got through with this stupid flight instructor assignment?

Zak squeezed her hand, pulling her out of her thoughts. She gave him a small smile and tried to focus on what he was saying.

Frak. This meeting was not going like she had planned.

* * *

He had never imagined himself as being too jealous to talk to her. He had lived through the time where she was so blissfully happy with his brother while he languished in a land of unrequited love. No one had ever caught on to how much he envied Zak and how much he wanted Kara.

He had always been good at keeping his mouth closed.

Still was.

She had looked him straight in the eyes, so vulnerable, so brutally honest, and whispered "I'm really sorry." She had paused, almost as if everything she believed in hung on the next words to come out of his mouth. Almost as if she would finally self-destruct if he gave her a little push either way.

And he had turned on heel and ran.

His jealousy and his cowardice had caused him to flee at the one turning point in their relationship.

He finally felt the despair that he knew everyone in the Fleet must have been dealing with since the moment they became a stranded band of survivors, together against the world.

He was alone like the rest of them.

* * *

Kara stepped outside her instructor's quarters and stood in the corridor. She couldn't believe they had done this to her. Her own damn team had requested that she be transferred. 

What the frak had she done to them except push them to be their best?

Well, telling Nightwalker that if he wanted to get good at flying, he should get the stick out of his ass and use it to fly instead, that might have been pushing it. And taking out Bear's target last week when he obviously wasn't good enough to do it without her might have been overstepping her bounds.

But, damnit! She had been the only reason those rejects hadn't washed out yet.

And now she had to bounce from team to team until the instructors found someone who didn't mind working with the difficult nugget. Damn. The way things were going she was never going to get her call sign.

Her instructor had said that if she started focusing on improving her skills and not bucking for the stars which were not within her reach or abilities, she might actually stand a chance of being a great pilot one day. Like that was supposed to make this situation all better.

Bucking for the stars, huh? He thought she was just some kind of star bucker?

Wait a minute. She stopped in front of the simulation room door she was about to pass. Starbucker. Starbuck.

Now that was a good call sign.

She would have to suggest it to her instructor when she had a chance. He would find it funny since he had inadvertently come up with it.

But first, she was going to stop bucking for the stars and work on improving her skills.

Bursting into the simulation room, she started yelling, "All right, you worthless pieces of Cylon crap. My instructors tell me that you all are getting a little too big for your britches. They figured they'd send in good ole' Starbuck to straighten you out. See if maybe I can put your frak-ups in your place."

No one really responded to her taunting which was something new. Her old team couldn't keep their mouths shut when it came to firing back taunts. Maybe that was why they weren't that good of flyers. Too busy trying to keep up with her out of the air to be able to keep up with her in the air.

Great. Maybe the immunity this group had to her sarcasm and wit would push her a little harder.

Her eyes caught on the pretty boy trying to stay quietly to his little corner. An easy target if she had ever seen one. "Let me see. You're probably the worst of them, aren't you?"

He looked shocked that she had even noticed him.

She smirked. This was going to be all too easy. A girl of her talents shouldn't be wasted like this. "You are the person the instructors sent me in here to put in his place, aren't you, hotshot?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He definitely wasn't a hotshot. She had just said that to be ironic. This boy in front of her might have been something if she had saw him in a crowded bar, but in a Viper, she would be willing to bet that he was nothing special.

"You think that just because I'm not on your squad that I don't watch your sims?" She had to do her best not to laugh out loud. As if she really wasted time watching anyone else's results. "Your team is ragged. There's no flow. If there hadn't been some strange miracle in each one of your flights, you all would have been simulated dead."

She suddenly remembered hearing gossip of a pretty boy who had a knack for flying. Was this wallflower actually the one they were talking about? She shook her head. No way. He couldn't be. "And word is you're the ring leader. How someone who flies so sloppy can lead is beyond me."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

She looked around. No one was standing up for this guy. She was giving him a verbal lashing with no provocation at all, and yet none of his team was watching his back. It almost made her regret what she said next. Almost.

"I bet you think you're some sort of god. That you were destined to be in the sky and that no one can touch you when you're up there. Well, wake up, fly boy. You're not a god."

The look of devastation on his face made her feel suddenly guilty. She hadn't really meant any of the words that came out of her mouth. They were just her only way of infuriating these pilots enough so that they wouldn't ask her questions about why they hadn't been informed of their new team member. She needed to practice against different styles of pilots if she wanted to be the best.

But she couldn't tell this distressed pilot that nor could she apologize, so she found the first empty simulator and slid inside, away from their prying eyes.

Surprisingly, within the first three minutes of the simulation, the panel in front of her reported that only she and the boy whose spirit she had fraked with remained. She chanced a glance at the running tally of stats. Not only was he still active in the simulation but he was keeping up with her in kills. Interesting.

Her hand slipped slightly on the throttle, and her simulated Viper lost a little of its speed. This pretty boy pilot was making her tired. She had been pushing and pushing herself to show the whole team that they were way below her level. She wasn't used to this kind of strain, and now she could feel the fatigue creeping into her bones. But she figured she had enough to finish this last pilot off.

And that's when that one last pilot flipped his Viper straight over hers and began shooting with better accuracy than even the pros she had seen in her day.

Fine. She could play his game. She started rolling and firing, but it seemed like every target she locked had been shot by him only half a second earlier. The asshole had even started to take the targets obviously intended for her.

"Frak!" she screamed into the comm. "What the frak do you think you're doing, you fraking bastard!"

She waited for some snide remark to come flying back, but instead, he just took out a few more of her targets. She bit her lip and set her mind to show him that no one could just trample Kara Thrace like that.

The buzzer rang before she couldn't even get started on vengeance.

She knew that she should feel humiliated. She had taunted the pretty boy without really knowing the story behind him. He had served her ass back to her on a platter. She knew that everyone expected her to jump out of the cockpit and start throwing punches. Normally that was what she would do to teach someone a lesson.

The problem was she didn't feel humiliated.

She felt excited.

She had finally found someone to challenge her. Frak. She had found a pilot who was better than her.

As she got of the cockpit, she heard someone call him Apollo.

Yeah. She could handle that call sign, too.

Before she could go over and congratulate him, her instructor came barreling up. "Thrace."

"Yes, sir?" she said, hesitantly giving him a salute.

"Who told you to do the simulation with this team?"

She let herself have one last look at the only pilot who had put her in her place before turning back to the man in front of her. "Sir. I figured it was time to take your advice. Start practicing and stop bucking for the stars."

Her instructor shook his head with a laugh and motioned for her to start walking.

"Speaking of bucking for the stars, sir, I wanted to talk to you about my call sign."

* * *

"Apollo, this is Galactica. I repeat, you are ordered to bring your Viper in for debriefing."

This was the fourth time Lee had heard the order to return to the ship.

Somehow he couldn't tear himself away from the sky. It glittered slightly with the aftereffects of the Cylon Raider's FTL drive. In the back of his head, he was reminded of the trails that Kara always left behind everywhere she went. Sometimes they were trails of blood and violence. Sometimes they were trails of exaggerations and awe. Sometimes they were trails of laughter and tears of joy.

She had been right there within reach only seconds earlier. Why hadn't he figured out that she was going to do something this fraking stupid?

Because she gave you no warning, Lee.

She didn't even give you a goodbye.

Her words to ask for a secure channel with his father rang through his ears. She had felt the need to say goodbye to the Old Man. Not to him, though. He wasn't that important to her.

The small, quiet apology she had given him was also at the front of his mind. Why hadn't he said something to her? Said he knew. Said that it would just take a little time for him to forgive her. Said that he didn't want her doing anything so stupid ever again.

Gods. Kara. He was really sorry, too.

Sorry for not being strong and sorry for letting her down when she needed it the most.

The air around his Viper was cold and no longer had any sign of glitter as he kicked the ship into burn and returned to a ship that no longer felt like home.

* * *

Kara Thrace sat in the center seat of the front row in the briefing room. This was the first day of the rest of her life, and she was scared to death. It had taken all her strength to finally stand up to her mother and say that she was moving to Picon because the Academy had accepted her application to join Flight School. She was going to be a Viper pilot. Her mother's reaction was to immediately tell her that she wasn't good enough to be a Viper pilot.

Well, she would show her. She planned to work as hard as she could to graduate as the best pilot the Academy had ever seen. Old Wickman who ran the garage in her Caprican neighborhood already said she had a natural talent for understanding all things mechanical. She figured it wouldn't be so hard to transfer that into talent for flying something mechanical.

Her eyes darted around at the people who would be her classmates. They didn't look like they were anything to worry about. Half of them looked like they hadn't even experienced one hard day in their life.

She caught the eyes of a young boy at the back of the room. Was he staring at her? What the frak did he want? She hoped to the gods that he wasn't going to be like the last moron who had strolled over to her and asked if she was lost. She had wanted to deck him. Just because she didn't look like your typical Viper pilot didn't make her any less good.

A little voice in the back of her head wondered if maybe he wasn't like the others. He was staring at her with such open honesty. She could almost see the same struggle to be the best deep inside him. Maybe he wanted to be her friend. Maybe if she talked to him, she would forget about how scared she was for a few seconds.

She found herself telling that little voice to frak off and gave him her coldest glare before facing the front.

She had no time for friends.

* * *

_Lee stared past his gun at the terrified face of the XO. He couldn't believe he was doing this. He was pointing a loaded firearm at his father's best friend._

_"Men, lay down your weapons." He hoped that his voice sounded commanding enough for them to listen. He didn't want this situation to get any more out of hand than it already had._

_If Kara could only see him now._

_He winced. Don't think about her. She's gone. She's never coming back._

_He steeled his gaze on Tigh as the old man started to scream that this was mutiny and did he realize what he was doing._

_"Yes, I do. But you can tell my father that I'm listening to my instincts, and my instincts tell me that we cannot sacrifice our democracy just because the President makes a bad decision."_

_In the back of his head, he desperately wanted to add a big 'I told you so' to the list of things he wanted Tigh to tell the Commander. His control was directly linked to the pilot who had just gone rogue. Without her here to do the unthinkable and fix the unfixable, it fell to Lee._

_Within seconds, the President had the situation back in her control. The guns were lowered, and Lee felt the snap of handcuffs on his wrists. The severity of his actions suddenly hit him. He wasn't going to just get a slap on the wrist for this one. It was highly likely that he would be stripped of his wings, of his title as CAG, and of every last thing he used to identify himself._

_And why was it he wanted to blame Kara for all of that?_

_Since that first day of Academy, his life had taken a series of turns he had never intended. He wanted to be the best pilot the Twelve Colonies had ever seen. His ultimate goal was to raise himself to the level of Commander, almost wishing that he could just sweep his father's job out from under his feet._

_But his life hadn't happened like that. Kara had showed up in his life and stole away his brother, both emotionally at first and then physically. The guilt made him study even harder, but his dreams felt hollow now that his brother couldn't be a part of them._

_Then she had to do the unthinkable and try to fix his relationship with his father. He had written William Adama off as an unfeeling, uncaring bastard who didn't even deserve one ounce of Lee's respect. And then Kara turned that opinion on its head and made him look at his father in a new light._

_Kara had taught him what it was like to care for someone so much that you would do anything for them. She had taught him why you sometimes had to make the crazy move to be sure that things turned out all right._

_The shuttle clicked into lock as they were delivered onto Galactica. The Marines began to lead him through the corridors but not in the direction he thought. "Aren't you taking me to the brig?"_

_"Not yet, Junior," one of the Marines said with a laugh. "Daddy wants to see you."_

_Lee ignored the snide remark and steeled himself for the hard times ahead._

_So this is what Kara had been feeling for the past five years of her life. This hopelessness, knowing there was nothing you could do but pray that the pain would eventually end one day._

_Oh gods. He wished she was here. She would know what to do to make this situation right. There had to be some good sarcastic remark that he could say to make everything just disappear._

_But she's not here. She ran to a Cylon-infested planet where she most likely was killed on sight. She threw her life away carelessly._

_And as much as he mourned for her, as much as it hurt him somewhere deep inside that she wouldn't be around to smile and laugh with him, to make sure he wasn't too serious, he knew that his life could finally return to normal without her there._

_No repression. No suppression._

_Just a life in a cell in the brig._

_Frak. He missed her already._

_

* * *

_

Author's note: This is the point at which my fic ends. I was afraid that some might find the pieces confusing so I'm posting a few different "versions". Chapter Two will include the sections as they occurred chronologically. Chapter Three is strictly Kara's point of view. Chapter Four is strictly Lee's point of view.


	2. Chronological Version

Lee Adama stared around the briefing room on the main campus of the Academy of the Twelve Colonies as everyone started arriving for their orientation. He could see a few familiar faces from his days of general schooling. Most of the people, including those he knew, looked scared, confused, intimated. He wasn't any of those things.

All he was to anyone right now was another Commander's son who had had no problem getting acceptance into the Viper training program because it would be a slight to Daddy if he got rejected.

Everyone would be wrong. The great William "Husker" Adama had helped him get his foot in the door, but that was all. Lee planned to make it to graduation with only his merits to credit for the success. He would fly his ass off until everyone saw that he was good enough to be in this program no matter who his father was. They might say it was genetic, the ease he felt in a cockpit, but he didn't care. At least genetics implied that he was utilizing his talent to its fullest.

He waved to Broc, his best friend since primary school, who was leaning against the back wall. "Why aren't you down there?" he asked, pointing to the front row where there was no one sitting.

"I'm a little too intimidated to just go and plop myself in front of where the instructors are going to be staring us down in a few minutes as an act of intimidation."

Lee nodded. The reason made sense, but he still couldn't help but feel that it only pointed out how out of place Broc was in this environment. He shouldn't be nervous because of the instructors' desire to intimidate. Everyone knew it was coming. You just stared at the wall and took it.

"So how does the competition size up?" Lee asked, scanning the room.

"There are your usual tough guys who keep making circles around the room, staring people down. And then there's the usual bookworms who are smart but mostly got in because they have parents in high places. No offense, Lee."

"None taken as long as you-"

"-understand that you're good enough to be here. I know. Am I your friend or not?"

Lee rolled his eyes. "So anyone else?"

Broc chuckled and pushed off the wall as he began to get noticeably excited at what he was about to say. "You're never going to believe this part. But, well, there was this little slip of a blonde girl walking around before. I thought that maybe she was lost. Someone beat me to the punch before I could get over there and ask her if she needed help. She gave them one cold look and marched herself up to the front row that no one seems to want to sit in and sat in the center."

Lee's eyes immediately fell on the girl Broc was talking about. He had been wrong about the front row being empty because, sure enough, a blonde girl was sitting there, looking very standoffish. She was fiddling with the chain her newly issued Nugget dog tag was hanging on.

Broc had continued talking, but Lee had stopped listening. Something about this girl intrigued him. Somehow he knew that she wasn't the little frail, lost thing that his best friend had taken her to be. There was a power in the way that she sat. And her eyes kept scanning everyone around her as if she was searching for weakness in all those present.

Unlike almost every other person in the briefing room, she looked like she knew what she was doing. She looked important. She looked like she belonged.

Lee continued to stare at her, trying to figure out if he should know who this mystery person was and why she might be so fraking important.

The staring had nothing to do with the fact that he found her pretty.

Nothing at all.

* * *

Kara Thrace sat in the center seat of the front row in the briefing room. This was the first day of the rest of her life, and she was scared to death. It had taken all her strength to finally stand up to her mother and say that she was moving to Picon because the Academy had accepted her application to join Flight School. She was going to be a Viper pilot. Her mother's reaction was to immediately tell her that she wasn't good enough to be a Viper pilot.

Well, she would show her. She planned to work as hard as she could to graduate as the best pilot the Academy had ever seen. Old Wickman who ran the garage in her Caprican neighborhood already said she had a natural talent for understanding all things mechanical. She figured it wouldn't be so hard to transfer that into talent for flying something mechanical.

Her eyes darted around at the people who would be her classmates. They didn't look like they were anything to worry about. Half of them looked like they hadn't even experienced one hard day in their life.

She caught the eyes of a young boy at the back of the room. Was he staring at her? What the frak did he want? She hoped to the gods that he wasn't going to be like the last moron who had strolled over to her and asked if she was lost. She had wanted to deck him. Just because she didn't look like your typical Viper pilot didn't make her any less good.

A little voice in the back of her head wondered if maybe he wasn't like the others. He was staring at her with such open honesty. She could almost see the same struggle to be the best deep inside him. Maybe he wanted to be her friend. Maybe if she talked to him, she would forget about how scared she was for a few seconds.

She found herself telling that little voice to frak off and gave him her coldest glare before facing the front.

She had no time for friends.

* * *

Lee slammed the cockpit hatch to his simulator open. He knew that everyone expected him to come vaulting out, gloating at his accomplishment.

They didn't know that he hadn't meant to do it.

He hadn't meant to beat her.

His face reddened as all the eyes in the room clearly focused on him.

It had been the normal weekly flight simulation they were all obligated to do as nuggets. There was some silly competition between the different halls in his dorm as to who could perform the best. He didn't care about that. How he flew only mattered to the instructors and even that was only when he could get out of the simulators and into the real thing.

That didn't stop the little blonde thing he had seen all over the campus since that day in the briefing room from barreling into the room while yelling about how the instructors had seen it fit that she be matched up with this bunch of frak-ups. Seems like they were getting a little too big-headed.

Lee couldn't even pretend to have no idea what she meant. His flight simulator partners had all gotten a little too cocky. The problem was they were usually only given team assignments, not assignments of individual skill. They weren't particularly good as a group, but with Lee on their team, they hadn't failed once.

They were getting cocky when they didn't have the chops to back it up. Secretly, he was glad that the instructors had thrown her in with them for this particular sim. This was an individual test in which you didn't have to watch out for anyone's back but your own. He knew from the rumors circulating that she wouldn't hesitate for one second if it came to the point where they got in the way of her own success. She would be ruthless.

Lee had been about to turn quietly and start his simulated pre-flight checklist, but when she kept talking, he froze.

"Let me see. You're probably the worst of them, aren't you?"

He was shocked to realize she was pointing at him. "Huh?"

"You are the person the instructors sent me in here to put in his place, aren't you, hotshot?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, secretly laughing at the fact that she had read the situation completely wrong. He was the hotshot who was going to soar because she was here to put down the rest of his team.

"You think that just because I'm not on your squad that I don't watch your sims? Your team is ragged. There's no flow. If there hadn't been some strange miracle in each one of your flights, you all would have been simulated dead. And word is you're the ring leader. How someone who flies so sloppy can lead is beyond me."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Lee hissed, suddenly wishing he had bothered to learn this rather annoying girl's name.

"I bet you think you're some sort of god. That you were destined to be in the sky and that no one can touch you when you're up there. Well, wake up, fly boy. You're not a god."

And then she disappeared into the flight simulator that had been assigned to Broc before he realized he couldn't hack it and dropped out of the Academy. For some reason, it seemed fitting that she should be riding in the spot of his best friend.

The only thing that had kept even a semblance of control to his flying in the beginning of the simulation was the fact that she hadn't made a dig about him being Daddy's little boy. She had left out all the usual taunts. He gave her a little leave-way because of that.

His teammates all dropped out of the simulation within minutes. It was just he and this girl fighting against one another to see who could accurately shoot the Cylon targets while flying as fast and as accurately as they could. She had kept up with him for the first hundred or so targets. But then he could practically taste her getting fatigued.

And suddenly he found himself wanting to rub in how wrong she was. He wanted to point out that she might be good, but she would never be the best with him in the cockpit.

He threw in all the hot dog moves that he had vowed to never use. He flipped his simulated Viper end to end and shot targets that were behind him as well as in front. He rolled and pitched so that she had to go on the defensive, and he took out a few of the targets which were obviously intended as easy shots for her guns. Throughout it all, he could hear her voice swearing over the comms that linked simulator to simulator.

He knew she wanted him to taunt her. To point out how wrong she had been.

He didn't need words for that. His actions would speak loud enough. And taunts would only serve to anger her into stepping up her game.

Then the buzzer rang. The simulation ended. Reality set in.

And he realized how much he had humiliated her. He had let his temper get the better of him and had taken down a pilot who hadn't needed a reality check.

She had been cocky and now he had made himself the center of attention.

Crap. So much for laying low until he got his wings.

One of his fellow students yelled out, "So, how does it feel to be a god, Apollo?"

He rolled his eyes. Apollo. God of the sun. Cute.

The name rang through people's cheers and chants. The only thing that kept him from grimacing was knowing, at least after a few minutes, no one would ever call him such a conceited name again.

* * *

Kara stepped outside her instructor's quarters and stood in the corridor. She couldn't believe they had done this to her. Her own damn team had requested that she be transferred.

What the frak had she done to them except push them to be their best?

Well, telling Nightwalker that if he wanted to get good at flying, he should get the stick out of his ass and use it to fly instead, that might have been pushing it. And taking out Bear's target last week when he obviously wasn't good enough to do it without her might have been overstepping her bounds.

But, damnit! She had been the only reason those rejects hadn't washed out yet.

And now she had to bounce from team to team until the instructors found someone who didn't mind working with the difficult nugget. Damn. The way things were going she was never going to get her call sign.

Her instructor had said that if she started focusing on improving her skills and not bucking for the stars which were not within her reach or abilities, she might actually stand a chance of being a great pilot one day. Like that was supposed to make this situation all better.

Bucking for the stars, huh? He thought she was just some kind of star bucker?

Wait a minute. She stopped in front of the simulation room door she was about to pass. Starbucker. Starbuck.

Now that was a good call sign.

She would have to suggest it to her instructor when she had a chance. He would find it funny since he had inadvertently come up with it.

But first, she was going to stop bucking for the stars and work on improving her skills.

Bursting into the simulation room, she started yelling, "All right, you worthless pieces of Cylon crap. My instructors tell me that you all are getting a little too big for your britches. They figured they'd send in good ole' Starbuck to straighten you out. See if maybe I can put your frak-ups in your place."

No one really responded to her taunting which was something new. Her old team couldn't keep their mouths shut when it came to firing back taunts. Maybe that was why they weren't that good of flyers. Too busy trying to keep up with her out of the air to be able to keep up with her in the air.

Great. Maybe the immunity this group had to her sarcasm and wit would push her a little harder.

Her eyes caught on the pretty boy trying to stay quietly to his little corner. An easy target if she had ever seen one. "Let me see. You're probably the worst of them, aren't you?"

He looked shocked that she had even noticed him.

She smirked. This was going to be all too easy. A girl of her talents shouldn't be wasted like this. "You are the person the instructors sent me in here to put in his place, aren't you, hotshot?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He definitely wasn't a hotshot. She had just said that to be ironic. This boy in front of her might have been something if she had saw him in a crowded bar, but in a Viper, she would be willing to bet that he was nothing special.

"You think that just because I'm not on your squad that I don't watch your sims?" She had to do her best not to laugh out loud. As if she really wasted time watching anyone else's results. "Your team is ragged. There's no flow. If there hadn't been some strange miracle in each one of your flights, you all would have been simulated dead."

She suddenly remembered hearing gossip of a pretty boy who had a knack for flying. Was this wallflower actually the one they were talking about? She shook her head. No way. He couldn't be. "And word is you're the ring leader. How someone who flies so sloppy can lead is beyond me."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

She looked around. No one was standing up for this guy. She was giving him a verbal lashing with no provocation at all, and yet none of his team was watching his back. It almost made her regret what she said next. Almost.

"I bet you think you're some sort of god. That you were destined to be in the sky and that no one can touch you when you're up there. Well, wake up, fly boy. You're not a god."

The look of devastation on his face made her feel suddenly guilty. She hadn't really meant any of the words that came out of her mouth. They were just her only way of infuriating these pilots enough so that they wouldn't ask her questions about why they hadn't been informed of their new team member. She needed to practice against different styles of pilots if she wanted to be the best.

But she couldn't tell this distressed pilot that nor could she apologize, so she found the first empty simulator and slid inside, away from their prying eyes.

Surprisingly, within the first three minutes of the simulation, the panel in front of her reported that only she and the boy whose spirit she had fraked with remained. She chanced a glance at the running tally of stats. Not only was he still active in the simulation but he was keeping up with her in kills. Interesting.

Her hand slipped slightly on the throttle, and her simulated Viper lost a little of its speed. This pretty boy pilot was making her tired. She had been pushing and pushing herself to show the whole team that they were way below her level. She wasn't used to this kind of strain, and now she could feel the fatigue creeping into her bones. But she figured she had enough to finish this last pilot off.

And that's when that one last pilot flipped his Viper straight over hers and began shooting with better accuracy than even the pros she had seen in her day.

Fine. She could play his game. She started rolling and firing, but it seemed like every target she locked had been shot by him only half a second earlier. The asshole had even started to take the targets obviously intended for her.

"Frak!" she screamed into the comm. "What the frak do you think you're doing, you fraking bastard!"

She waited for some snide remark to come flying back, but instead, he just took out a few more of her targets. She bit her lip and set her mind to show him that no one could just trample Kara Thrace like that.

The buzzer rang before she couldn't even get started on vengeance.

She knew that she should feel humiliated. She had taunted the pretty boy without really knowing the story behind him. He had served her ass back to her on a platter. She knew that everyone expected her to jump out of the cockpit and start throwing punches. Normally that was what she would do to teach someone a lesson.

The problem was she didn't feel humiliated.

She felt excited.

She had finally found someone to challenge her. Frak. She had found a pilot who was better than her.

As she got of the cockpit, she heard someone call him Apollo.

Yeah. She could handle that call sign, too.

Before she could go over and congratulate him, her instructor came barreling up. "Thrace."

"Yes, sir?" she said, hesitantly giving him a salute.

"Who told you to do the simulation with this team?"

She let herself have one last look at the only pilot who had put her in her place before turning back to the man in front of her. "Sir. I figured it was time to take your advice. Start practicing and stop bucking for the stars."

Her instructor shook his head with a laugh and motioned for her to start walking.

"Speaking of bucking for the stars, sir, I wanted to talk to you about my call sign."

* * *

Lee ran his hand through his still wet hair and, grabbing the key card that would let him back into the dorms, made his way out the door. He hoped his brother hadn't been waiting in too long in the rundown bar most of the nuggets training to be Viper pilots preferred.

When Zak had first called him to let him know that he was training to be a Viper pilot, Lee had been surprised. His brother had never really shown much promise at flying. A lot of times, Lee only thought he tried so that he could gain some of his father's attention. The great Commander only seemed to want to talk to them when they were doing particularly good things in the air.

Groaning, Lee broke out into a slight jog. He had warned his brother that he wasn't sure if he could make this little dinner. His first few weeks in War College were wearing him thin. It had gotten to the point where he really wasn't sure if he could eat and sleep let alone socialize with his brother.

But then he thought about how hard those first few months in the Academy had been on him. And he had had the raw talent to back up the challenge flying gave him. Zak didn't. His little brother had to be going nuts, trying to pull out decent scores on those simulators. A supportive brother would be there for him no matter how busy he was.

Lee smiled at the sight of the rundown bar that he had frequented so many nights when he was in the Academy. He hadn't had time to make it down here in months. Seeing the people laughing and joking as they indulged in a little ambrosia and triad made him understand his decision had been right. This place was distraction at its worst, and if he was going to make it through War College and the officer training that accompanied it, he would need to avoid it.

He had resigned himself to that. But then a call from his brother had brought him rushing down here.

He spotted Zak sitting at a table in the back and grinned. His kid brother loved being the center of attention as much as Lee hated it. He had chosen this table away from the action for his brother's sake.

"Hey," Lee said, sliding into a chair across from Zak.

"I wasn't sure you were going to make it," Zak said, holding up his watch. "Half an hour late?"

"My classes ran long, and then they threw me into a Viper flight. I had to take a shower after that as a favor to you nuggets."

"Well, at least you made it," Zak said. He leaned back and took a sip of ambrosia out of the glass in front of him. "I guess you're wondering why I asked you down here."

"I am." Lee said. He turned to signal at the bartender to send over two more drinks.

"Better make it three," Zak said.

"Someone joining us?"

"Yeah. She actually just went to check on a few of her pilots who weren't looking so well."

"First, she? And second, her pilots?"

"My new girlfriend. And she's an instructor for first years."

"You're dating a teacher?"

"Don't make it sound so dirty."

Lee leaned back in his chair as the tiny little waitress who had been staring at him since he walked in brought their drinks over. "Thank you."

"No problem," she said in a drawl that clearly identified her as a citizen of Geminon. "Should you need anything at all, I'll be right over there."

Lee nodded and watched her walk off.

"How do you do it, big brother?"

"Do what?" he said, turning his attention back to Zak.

"Get girls to lust after you without even looking at them."

"I'm not interested," he said, even though it was really not an explanation. "She's not my type."

"And what type would that be?"

Lee's mind immediately flew to the woman whose image had been occupying his dreams of late. "The type of woman who wouldn't take shit from men like that waitress is doing with those nuggets. But let's not get into that. Let's go back to the fact that you're probably breaking about fifty Academy rules by dating an instructor."

"We're not hiding our relationship, and her boss has made it clear that she's not to be the one administering tests to me at any point. She just helps me with my flight simulations."

"And boy do you need it."

The voice made Lee freeze. Frak. If that was who he thought it was, then he was in trouble.

Hoping to the gods that he hadn't recognized the voice correctly, he turned to look at his brother's new girlfriend and flight instructor.

Yeah. There she was. The woman he had seen on and off as they worked their way through the Academy training program. The woman he had lost control around and ground into the dust that day in the simulators. The little blond thing that was so many more things than she seemed.

But worst off, she was the woman who he had been having rather vivid R-rated fantasies about every single time he closed his eyes.

Frak didn't even begin to cover it.

* * *

Kara groaned as she calmly instructed a few of her students that if they didn't want to end up in the brig, they were going to have to learn how to control their liquor. These kids had promise if only they could get their priorities straight.

Oh gods. Had she actually just thought that?

She smiled at the waitress who was walking past before grabbing her bottle off the bar. Women who reduced themselves to wearing tight clothing in order to get a few extra bucks disgusted her. There was so much more they could be doing that didn't involve losing every ounce of self-respect they had.

Her eyes locked on the table where Zak was sitting. He wasn't alone anymore. His brother must have finally showed up. The jerk had kept them waiting long enough. So he was Zak's hero. She didn't care. No one kept Starbuck waiting.

She marched over to the table, catching the tail end of their conversation.

"-one administering tests to me at any point. She just helps me with my flight simulations."

"And boy do you need it," she said with a laugh.

Her jaw dropped as Zak's brother turned around to look at her.

No way. No fraking way.

Zak's brother was the pilot she had flown against in the simulator in those first few months of Academy. The only one who had ever given her a challenge. The one who was christened Apollo mostly because of her.

She had no clue that the mighty Apollo was an Adama. That explained a lot.

At the same time, it explained nothing at all. Because suddenly, everything she had heard about Lee Adama made no sense. She didn't have time to listen to gossip, but this one had been hard to avoid. The whole Academy had been buzzing since practically the day she started with talk of Battlestar Galactica Commander William Adama's oldest son who was supposedly riding on Daddy's coattails.

The man she had flown against definitely had the chops to be in the Viper program. He wasn't there for any reason but his own gods-given talent.

"Hi. I'm Kara," she said, taking a seat next to Zak.

"But you can call her god," Zak quipped smiling at her.

She rolled her eyes at his casual use of her typical first greeting to a new class of nuggets. "Or Starbuck. That's what I'm commonly referred to as."

"Lee," he said, still looking rather shell-shocked. Come to think of it, why was he looking so surprised? What was there for him to be surprised about?

"Most people call my brother, Apollo," Zak said with a smirk.

She found herself resenting the fact that he couldn't have told her that a few minutes earlier. At least then she would have had time to prepare.

In the back of her mind, she found herself wondering why this new development had thrown her off so much. What did it matter if Zak's brother was the one man she had considered her equal? What if he was the one guy she wished there had been more time to get to know during her Viper training? What if the pretty boy was the person she had always secretly wished would someday be her wingman when she got through with this stupid flight instructor assignment?

Zak squeezed her hand, pulling her out of her thoughts. She gave him a small smile and tried to focus on what he was saying.

Frak. This meeting was not going like she had planned.

* * *

Lee walked into the bar on Picon after pausing slightly at the sense of deja vu. This whole situation was familiar. About eight months earlier, he had strolled in happy to see his little brother and left confused as to why he wasn't happy that Zak had found someone to love.

And now he was walking back in to meet the two people that had confused him so badly before.

He made a detour at the bar. This time he wouldn't be stupid enough to wait to order the alcohol until after he had found them. In fact, if he could get a few drinks in him before they even noticed he was here, all the better.

"Lee!"

Maybe not. He grabbed the drink from the bartender and threw a few cubits down.

The sound of her voice calling out his name still felt new and strange. They had gone through Academy together without even uttering each other's call signs, let alone their actual real names. And now she just tossed it around like they had known each other since they were young.

All the same, he didn't hesitate to give her a small wave of recognition before dropping his gaze as he pushed his way through the crowd to their table. "Again, I find myself answering a cryptic summons from my little brother," he said with a laugh as he took a seat.

"He doesn't have a new girlfriend this time," Kara said with a laugh, grabbing Zak's hand in hers.

Kara. When had he let himself think of her on such a personal level? Why couldn't she just be that little blonde thing? Or the girl he had beat in simulations? Why did she have to be Kara?

"No, I don't," Zak said. He tore his eyes away from hers in order to look at Lee. "I have a fiancée."

Lee knew that choking on his drink had not been the reaction they wanted, but it was what happened. "What did you just say?"

"I asked Kara to marry me yesterday, and she said yes."

Lee nodded his head slowly, trying to process this new information. He hadn't even known that his little brother was getting serious with his new girlfriend. He had been too busy trying to find a way to get through War College so that he could finally get his placement on some Battlestar far, far away from this very problem. Plus, he still had the goal in his head that he would be a better man than his father on all levels, and then finally, maybe the pressure would let up.

Not that he hadn't taken time to learn about this new girl in his brother's life. He found out that she was the daughter of a rather obscure military trainer mother and one of the best jazz musicians on Caprica. He found out that she had practically breezed through all the flying courses in Academy but struggled through the basic arts. He found out that she was a frequent visitor to the brig and had a problem with too much ambrosia when combined with men that were, frankly, fraking idiots.

All that research had been for his brother's own sake, of course. It had nothing to do with his own curiosity.

And now his brother was making this little relationship permanent. Something that no self-respecting Viper pilot would do. They knew that their lives were too hectic to let themselves make such attachments. Which, come to think of it, begged the question of why an Academy-trained Flight Instructor would want to put herself in that position, too.

Gods, this was all too much.

"Congratulations," he finally spit out after realizing they had been patiently staring at him, waiting for a reaction.

Zak rolled his eyes. "I think we need more ambrosia."

Before Lee could protest, his brother was gone. Now it was only Kara and Lee at the table.

"So, you didn't exactly sound thrilled," she commented after a moment of awkward silence.

"Well, you can only imagine," he blurted out. Oh gods. That did not come out right.

"Yeah. The baby boy of one of the greatest Viper pilots in the history of the Twelve Colonies marrying the trailer trash of Caprica. Sometimes even I don't believe it."

He stared at her in confusion. Was that really what she thought of herself? "No. It's not that. It's just… it seemed to me like you had more sense than that."

"I don't understand."

"Well. I assumed that after you finished your assignment as a flight instructor you would be going to War College to obtain an official placement out in the field. You and I both know that no matter how good of a teacher you are, there's no way Zak's going to make it through Academy. So then, what is he going to do when his wife is stationed on a ship orbiting another planet?"

"How much thought have you put into this, Lee?"

Oh frak. He had said too much. Lee looked behind him, frantically wondering when Zak was going to come back. He couldn't even see his little brother through the crowd. Defeated, he turned back to look at Kara.

It surprised him to see her also scanning the room, presumably for Zak. Her eyes locked on his for a few seconds before she quickly shifted to stare down at her hands. The ring on her left hand caught the light and shined brightly. It seemed like she had already gotten in the nervous habit of fidgeting with it.

Nervous habit? What the frak did she have to be nervous about?

Unlike him, it seemed like her life was just going splendidly these days. "How has instructing been going for you?" he asked, trying to bring up a topic that was much more safe than if they continued on with their discussion of the now not-so-secret engagement.

"Oh gods. You wouldn't believe the nuggets they send my way…"

He found himself staring at her sudden burst of excitement. She seemed to really love her job even though it was clearly a waste of some of the best talent the Twelve Colonies had. Her eyes had lit up as she started telling story after story about the new blood trying to make their way through Academy without washing out.

Her words slowly faded out as all of his senses suddenly directed themselves onto the glowing sight sitting in front of him. She looked a lot less jaded and soft when she let down her defenses, which obviously wasn't often from what he heard. He could see what had attracted his brother to her in the first place.

A voice in the back of his head nagged him to admit that he didn't have to invoke his brother to understand what would attract a man to this woman sitting before him. He would only have to consult his own memory of seeing her that first day in the briefing room.

She had seemed stubborn, not willing to budge for anyone. She had seemed smarter than most of the other people in the room without even having to say a word. And she had been the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

He stared at her from across the table as she still continued talking about her students.

She still was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Frak. His whole body froze as it suddenly dawned on him what was going on.

When had he fallen in love with his brother's girlfriend?

He watched as Kara paused in her story to give Zak a smile as he returned to their table with a round of drinks.

Scratch that. Make that in love with his brother's fiancée.

* * *

Kara nervously watched the door. "Why isn't he here yet?"

"Why are you so concerned?" Zak asked, taking her hand in his.

"Because he's the person you look up to the most," she said, biting her lip. "If he tells us he thinks we're making a mistake, we have no chance of convincing your parents that this isn't completely insane."

Zak touched the side of her face lightly. "We're not insane."

She returned his reassuring smile before her eyes drifted the bar.

And there he stood. Lee Adama. Still as much of a pretty flyboy as ever.

"Lee!" she yelled, waving to get his attention.

He froze for a second before making a motion that she guessed was a return wave. She watched as he made his way over to their table. He wasn't acting like she was used to, keeping his eyes low to the ground and not even taking a second glance at the pretty girls who were so blatantly staring him down.

By the time he got to their table, though, the odd behavior had ended. "Again, I find myself answering a cryptic summons from my little brother."

His laugh was a welcome sound to her ears. Which is why she let down her guard and just basked in the familiarity of the situation. "He doesn't have a new girlfriend this time," she said with a laugh, grabbing Zak's hand in hers.

Oh gods. Why had she just said that? She thought she had decided she was going to ease into the news they had to tell Lee.

"No, I don't," Zak said. He tore his eyes away from hers in order to look at Lee. "I have a fiancée."

She choked on her drink at exactly the same moment Lee did. Why did Zak just have to blurt it out like that?

"What did you just say?"

"I asked Kara to marry me yesterday, and she said yes."

She watched as Lee nodded but didn't say a word. She didn't blame him. The news had been sort of sudden considering he hadn't known how much time Zak was spending with her. Granted, War College probably gave him little to no time to do anything other than study and fly. But he still could have tried to make a little time to figure out what his baby brother was doing with his life.

Maybe if Lee had made a little more time, Zak would be better at flying a Viper. As it stood now, there was no way he was going to pass the examinations at the end of the term.

She found herself wondering why Lee hadn't said anything else yet. He was still just sitting there, nodding and staring off into space. Didn't he think it was a good idea? Oh gods. She didn't know what she would do if he started going on about how odd a match it was. As if she hadn't realized how crazy it was for a girl who grew up in the slums of Caprica to be marrying the son of a Battlestar Commander.

"Congratulations."

She smiled. He had finally said it. That meant he was okay with the idea, didn't it?

"I think we need more ambrosia."

Before she could protest, Zak was already halfway to the bar. She was alone with Lee for the first time that she could remember. What the frak was she supposed to say now? Her mind zeroed in on his congratulations. Why had it sounded so fake?

She stared at him for a moment as he purposefully looked anywhere but up at her. "So, you didn't exactly sound thrilled."

"Well, you can only imagine."

Her worst fear was true. Lee didn't think she was good enough to be part of his family. She couldn't let him know how much that hurt. Time for her trademark sarcasm. That always kept the pain from showing. "Yeah. The baby boy of one of the greatest Viper pilots in the history of the Twelve Colonies marrying the trailer trash of Caprica. Sometimes even I don't believe it."

"No. It's not that. It's just… it seemed to me like you had more sense than that."

"I don't understand."

"Well. I assumed that after you finished your assignment as a flight instructor you would be going to War College to obtain an official placement out in the field."

Her mind drifted back to the distant memory of a time when she had dreamed of just that. Saying frak you to the flight instructor life and being a Viper pilot on some distant Battlestar with the man sitting in front of her as her wingman. Gods, she was glad she had never told anyone about that.

She realized that Lee was still talking. "-there's no way Zak's going to make it through Academy. So then, what is he going to do when his wife is stationed on a ship orbiting another planet?"

Something suddenly occurred to her. He had laid out all of the worries she had had in the past few weeks within the last minute. Things that had taken her way too long to come to grips with, and he had just verbalized them like that. "How much thought have you put into this, Lee?"

She saw him pale and start subtly searching the room, presumably for Zak. It gave her a good opportunity to deal with why she was being so defensive. It wasn't that she was afraid of Lee disapproving. No, with her illustrious past, she practically expected it.

What she hadn't expected was how hard it was to talk to him about her relationship with Zak and why she had agreed to marry him. She had thought her reasons were foolproof until this moment with Lee sitting across from her.

Why wasn't Zak back yet? She started scanning the bar for him just like Lee had. Why did Zak always disappear when she needed him most?

She glanced at Lee and the color drained from her face as she realized that he was staring at her. Breaking eye contact, she focused on the new addition to her left hand. This little band of silver meant so much to so many people. She had never understood it.

"How has instructing been going for you?"

His question gave her the relief she had been praying for. This was something that she would have no trouble talking about. "Oh gods. You wouldn't believe the nuggets they send my way. I don't remember ever being that green. The other day one of my students asked me when they were going to be shown how to do all the rolls and flips that the experienced pilots knew. I told him by the time he graduated from my class, he wouldn't need anyone to show him. He would be so good that he would figure it out himself."

She felt herself smiling. She might hate the flight instructor job when she saw those she graduated with moving on to bigger and better missions in the sky. But sometimes… sometimes, she really felt like she was making a difference, teaching these nuggets how to survive.

"There was this one time, Lee, where one of my nuggets told me that he thought he was just as good of a pilot as I was. I told him he hadn't even seen me fly, but the little bastard just kept at it. I guess it serves me right for letting this kids think I was just another one of them. Anyway, I shoved his sorry ass in a simulator and spent the next half hour decimating his poor little virtual Viper."

Zak returned to the table, and she gave him a small smile. "I was just telling Lee about the time I shoved you into a flight simulator and showed you how it was done."

* * *

Lee was in the middle of the daily jog he had taken to going on in order to get used to the schematics of Battlestar Atlantia when his eyes locked on to a face he never thought he'd see on this ship.

"What the frak are you doing here, Zak?"

"I caught a shuttle that was leaving Picon early this morning. There were a few things I wanted to ask you before you come to my graduation in a few weeks. I didn't want to go through all that pomp and circumstance with Dad and telling him about our engagement without talking to you first."

Lee wiped the sweat off his face. "I told you before Zak. Dad won't care about you and Kara. If it doesn't hurt your chances of being a Viper pilot, he won't care."

"This isn't really about Dad, Lee. It's about you."

"Me?" Lee said, scrunching up his face in confusion. "Your pressing questions have to do with me?"

Zak rubbed his face and gave a sigh. "Listen, Lee. There's no way I can ask you this easily, so I'm just going to do it. What do you feel for Kara?"

"She's a good girl. I think she's going to make you happy, Zak." He let out a tense laugh. "But you didn't have to fly all the way to Atlantia for me to tell you that. I thought you already knew how much respect I have for your future wife."

"Respect? Is that all you have for her?"

"Admiration. Appreciation. Do you want me to go on?'

"How about love, Lee? Do you love her?"

Lee felt his heart freeze. The way his brother was looking at him… he knew. Oh gods. He didn't know how, but Zak knew that he was in love with Kara. "I love the way she makes you happy," he lied.

"Right. But do you love her?"

There was no way around this. He had never in his life told an outright lie to his little brother. But he had no other choice.

"No. Of course I don't. Kara and I had never even spoken to one another before you introduced her to me. I have to admit I knew who she was. Her actions at Academy were legendary. The girl spent more time in the brig than in the cockpit." Lee gave his brother his best fake smile. "But as for me loving her, no. I don't."

Zak nodded, and Lee could tell immediately that his brother hadn't believed a word he said. "Kara and I are going to get married, Lee. We are. I just wanted to make sure you knew that."

"I do," Lee said, understanding the subtext of his brother's words. He might love Kara, but Zak was the one whom she loved back.

That realization rang through his head as he watched his little brother turn his back to him and walk away.

* * *

Lee watched as the strongest woman he had ever known beside his mother broke down. She had held it together while everyone was gathered around the closed casket as it was lowered into the ground accompanied by the normal twelve-gun salute.

Now that only he and she stood in front of the covered grave, she had let herself go. Frak. She probably didn't even know he was still here, watching her.

He didn't know what to say to make her feel better.

"I know you're there, Lee," she whispered, pushing the tears from her eyes and glancing over at him.

"Are you going to be all right?" he asked, stepping forward to place a hand on her shoulder. Gods. Could he be any more impersonal?

She shrugged away from his touch and took a step towards the grave. "The man I intended to marry just died, Lee. He died in a fire caused by the Viper I taught him to fly. No. I am definitely not going to be all right."

He didn't know what to say to that. In fact, he didn't know what to say to most of what she had said to him since he received the news that his brother had been killed while flying.

He wanted to tell her that things were going to be all right. That even if she felt her life was over now that Zak was gone, she would manage to rebuild somehow. She could still fly better than any other pilot out there. She had that to fall back on.

But the words wouldn't leave his mouth. They would only sound hollow, anyway.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell."

And now she was apologizing. His heart ached for the destroyed woman standing in front of him.

Because the words still weren't right for him to say, he simply stepped forward and took her hand in his. At least he could be a comfort for her with a while. As much as it pained him to be so close to her and still be holding so much back, he wasn't about to step away.

Kara had unknowingly reached out to him for help even if she would forever deny it. He wasn't going to back down just because of a little emotional pain. He had been raised better than that.

Maybe someday he'll find a way to tell her that she was going to survive this. Maybe someday he could show her that life would go on.

But for now, he was content to just show her that he was here for her to lean on. He was going to show her that at the very least she could go on for the next few minutes.

After that, he wasn't sure what came next.

* * *

Kara stared at the newly made mound of earth that held the man she loved deep inside. She still couldn't believe that Zak was gone. Just two weeks ago, he had come bursting into her room after his little surprise visit with his brother, declaring his never-ending love for her. He was so vibrant and alive.

She felt the tears before she realized they had begun to fall once more.

Frak. She hadn't wanted to cry while he was still there. He probably thought she didn't know he was standing over her, watching. Damnit. Why did he have to be so protective of her? Hadn't it been enough that William Adama had seen fit to offer her a job as a pilot on his Battlestar as soon as she was done going through officer training? Now his oldest son was making sure that she didn't completely self-destruct.

If only they knew what she had done.

"I know you're there, Lee."

She wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Are you going to be all right?"

She knew he meant that question as one friend looking out for another, but his words only served to anger her.She shrugged his touch off and took a step away. "The man I intended to marry just died, Lee. He died in a fire caused by the Viper I taught him to fly. No. I am definitely not going to be all right."

Gods. She wanted to tell him how it had all been her fault. How Zak had died because she passed him in Basic Flight when he had failed the test in every single way. How the night before she had told him she wasn't sure marriage was the right thing for them to be doing at this time.

But when she looked up at Lee's face and saw only understanding, she knew that she could never tell him.

He was the last piece of Zak she had. She couldn't take it if she lost that right now.

"I'm sorry, Lee. I didn't mean that."

He didn't say a word. Instead, he just took her hand in his and squeezed.

Together, they stared at the grave of the man they both loved more than any other.

* * *

Lee paced up and down the length of the long hall in the house on Caprica that his mother had always been so proud of. He had just spent the entirety of dinner listening to his mother go on and on about how well Kara was doing. She had breezed right through officer's training and then quickly accepted his father's offer of a place on Galactica.

That's where she was now.

Caroline Adama had mentioned that Kara hadn't even been thrown into the brig once in the past six months. And that was the point where Lee really starting worrying. For the past two years, the most common occurrence in all Twelve Colonies was hearing the words 'Starbuck' and 'brig' together in the same sentence.

If she was avoiding trouble, then there still must be some sort of sadness or anger festered up inside her. He desperately wanted to know why she hadn't let it go yet. It had been a year.

Suddenly determined, he picked up the phone and dialed in the security number and connection location he had known since childhood.

"Caprica private residence, this is Galactica receiving your transmission."

Lee startled for a second. For as long as he could remember, the voice that answered the transmissions had been an elderly man too old to advance farther than this position. This time the voice belonged to someone a lot younger and a lot more unsure of what they were doing. Not to mention that this someone was definitely a woman.

Clearing his throat, he pushed that thought to the side. "Galactica, I'm requesting you connect me with Lieutenant Kara Thrace if she's available."

"Understood."

Lee waited for the voice to click off. When it didn't, he asked, "Is there a problem, Galactica?"

"No. I just…" The young girl's voice paused. "Well, isn't this the number to the Commander's old residence on Caprica?"

"Yes. It is."

"And you don't want to talk to the Old Man? Oh gods. I didn't not just call him that on the comms. I am so going to get fraking fired. Oh gods. I just said frak. Oh. I said it again."

Lee let out a chuckle. "Is this your first day?"

"Yes, sir. Wait. Are you a sir? I don't even know."

"What's your name?"

"Petty Officer Dualla, sir. But everyone calls me Dee."

"Well, Dee, I guess then I would be a sir to you. I'm Lieutenant Lee Adama which is why I'm calling from the Commander's old residence. I don't want to talk to my father right now. I'd like you to connect me to Starbuck." Lee paused for a moment. "And don't be worried about your job. I'm sure you're doing just fine. In fact, the bumbling is kind of charming."

"Thank you, sir. Connecting."

Her voice cut off this time, and Lee let out a little chuckle. This girl was definitely going to have some hard work cut out for her if she was going to stay on in her post as communications officer.

"Lieutenant Thrace speaking."

And there it was. The voice he hadn't heard almost a year.

"Hello? Is there anyone fraking there?"

He found that he couldn't get himself say anything. Hearing her voice was drumming up things he had spent so much time trying to forget.

"Damnit, Dee. If you even cut off another call for me, I'm going to personally march myself down to CIC and show you how it's done."

Lee wasn't even hearing her words anymore as he set down the receiver.

Calling her had been a stupid, unthinking move on his part. He had no idea what to say to her. 'Sorry that a year ago the man you loved died' just wasn't going to cut it. Neither was 'I'm worried because I hear you've been on your best behavior lately'.

And he definitely wasn't about to admit to her what the mere sound of her voice did to his heart. It was currently beating at a hundred miles before hour. He had really thought he had gotten over those feelings when they parted ways after Zak's funeral. But the guilt of loving his brother's girl was still there.

He stared at the phone. The guilt was there. And obviously, so was the love itself.

He heard his mother enter the kitchen and yell for him to help her with the groceries.

Frak. She better not start talking about the wonder that was Kara again.

* * *

Kara groaned and balled up the paper she had been writing on, flinging it across the bunkroom. It rolled around the floor next to the twenty or so other balled up mistakes. She was suddenly regretting being such a coward. It would be so much easier, and probably a lot less wasteful, if she just called him up and ask him how he was doing.

She knew exactly where he would be. With his mother back on Caprica.

Where else would one go to mourn the one year anniversary of your baby brother's death?

Sighing, she put the pen back down to a fresh piece of paper and tried again.

Dear Lee,

Could she actually use such a familiar greeting? She hadn't talked to him in almost a year. Frak it. She didn't care.

I just wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you on this hard day.

Hard day? What the frak was that?

I just wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you. Actually, I've thought about you a lot. Wondering how you were doing on Atlantia and whether you were still being the quiet kid in the corner who was phenomenally better than anyone else.

Okay. That didn't sound like she had been stalking him in Academy. Nope. Not at all.

We shouldn't have let things go like we did, Lee. I didn't know you before Zak, but I know you now. And I never thanked you for what you did for me that day in the cemetery when we buried

Buried? How heartless was that?

when wewere mourning together. It meant a lot to me then. It still means a lot to me. Why didn't we fraking keep in touch?

Great. Now she was swearing at him.

We could have been each other's support system. You could have taught me how to fit in on a Battlestar. You know this is my first assignment off planet. I wasn't used to having so many pilots like me within reach. It would have been nice to know if you had gone through the same thing.

Okay. Enough rambling. Close it up.

I miss you, Lee. Love, Kara.

Love? Love? Where the frak had that come from?

And I miss you? She hadn't known Lee long enough to miss him.

But for some reason, she knew that she did. She did miss him.

"Lieutenant Thrace, you have a call," Dee's voice rang through the bunkroom over the private intercom. The phone on the wall next to the table she was writing on started to ring.

"Lieutenant Thrace speaking."

There was only dead air. If this was that damn annoying Raptor ECO, Karl something or another, annoying her, she was going to kill him.

"Hello? Is there anyone fraking there?"

Still no answer. And then she remembered that it had been Dee's voice informing her of the call and not the usual voice of Second Petty Officer Tanner.

"Damnit, Dee. If you even cut off another call for me, I'm going to personally march myself down to CIC and show you how it's done."

She heard the line cut off completely and set the receiver down. Her eyes fell on the finished letter in front of her. Groaning, she balled the paper up and chucked it across the room.

Time for attempt number twenty-two.

In the back of her mind, she knew that it wouldn't be successful. And neither would attempt twenty-three or twenty-four. She could write a million letters, and they would never be good enough to send.

"Lieutenant Thrace to Hangar Bay B."

Groaning, she threw the pad of paper and pen onto her bunk. The letter that would never get written would have to wait until later.

* * *

Lee leaned against the bars of the brig and watched the little blonde woman who was driving her body to the extreme as she did push up after push up. He had no idea how someone who had found such a fitting niche to live her life in could look so sad. He knew if she wasn't such a brave person to the core, she would probably allow those tears that were welling in her eyes to fall.

Suddenly, he wanted her to know that he was there watching her. Maybe she could find comfort in his presence like she had done that day in the cemetery.

"This seems familiar." That had come out a lot smugger than he had intended.

She looked up at him as if he was the last thing she had ever imagined would be before her eyes. Hadn't someone told her that he had been ordered to attend the decommissioning?

"Captain Adama, sir," she said, finally standing up. The cocky grin he had always connected with her replaced the held-back tears. "Sorry I wasn't there to greet you with the rest of the squadron. Did they kiss your ass to your satisfaction?"

As much as he would have loved to tell her how good it was to hear her sarcasm, he chose to ignore it. "So what's the charge this time?"

She thought it over a moment before saying "Striking a superior asshole."

He felt a grin spread across his face even though he had been trying his best to stay serious. "I bet you've been waiting all day to say that one."

"Most of the afternoon." Smiling, she walked up to the bars and asked him, "So how long has it been?"

"Two years," he said shortly, knowing that this was just steering them to a topic he really didn't want to get into right now. He just wanted to bask in the fact that she was acting the way he could remember her from when Zak was still around.

"Two years? We must be getting old. Seems like the funeral-" Her eyes darted up to stare into his. "-was just a couple of months ago."

The look in her eyes made him pause. Was she talking about the fact that she had to bury the man she died or was she talking about what had happened between them after everyone else had gone?

As she continued talking, he suddenly realized what superior asshole she must have been referring to. He did his best to cover his shock from the image of her striking his father's best friend as it popped into his head.

And for the first time in two years, he felt relieved. The tension he had always felt around her suddenly faded away. For the first time, he realized that the distance between them had helped him smother those feelings he should never have even started feeling.

He would be gone off Galactica in a few days. Maybe the continued distance would get rid of his love for her completely.

Now what was she talking about?

Frak. Why had she brought up his father, the only other topic he didn't want to talk about?

As the tone between them started to become a little hostile, he found himself wondering why she always had to push him until he didn't know which end was up. Couldn't things just be simple with her?

Well, no matter. Things would get better when he was off this hunk of junk and there were miles of space between them.

* * *

Kara was taken aback as Lee told her not to even start as their conversation shifted to the topic of his father. She stared at him through the bars of the cell she had been calling home all day. Gods. She had forgotten how infuriating Zak's older brother could be.

"How long are you doing to do this?" she hissed quietly, knowing that there were plenty of crewmen around somewhere who would know what she and the Commander's elder son were arguing about. Zak's death was not a topic that was openly discussed on Galactica, but it wasn't one that was kept hidden.

"I'm not doing anything," he hissed back.

"He lost his son, Lee."

She felt herself freeze at her casual use of his name. She had tried so hard for the past two years to keep him at a distance. To only refer to him as Captain Adama. To not admit to anyone, including herself, that he was more than that.

His words cut into her thoughts. "And who's responsible for that?"

She stared at his face as he looked at her. It was so hardened and cold. Not a thing like the pretty flyboy she had seen in Academy. Not a thing like the busy man who had taken time to meet his baby brother's new girlfriend. Not the man who had held her as her grief took over the day she buried her life along with the man she loved.

He had changed so much from the Lee she had known. The one she had grown to care for in all the smallest, inconspicuous ways, he was gone. Instead, there was this tough, cynical military pilot who didn't seem to understand one thing about human nature anymore.

"Same old Lee," she choked out. "You haven't changed either."

"Zak was my brother!" he screamed.

The words cut through her and made her realize she had been right. Lee was gone. "What was he to me? Nothing?"

"That's not what I meant. And you know it."

Suddenly she couldn't even bear to look at the man she had been dying to see for over two years. "You know what? You should go." She tightened her fists. "I'm getting the urge to hit another superior asshole."

He gave her a smile that cut to the bone and walked away without another word.

Gods. That had hurt.

* * *

Lee made his way across the crowded hangar bay. Since the second the shuttle of Secretary Roslin- make that President Roslin- had docked on Galactica, all he could think about was finding her. Somehow, his training in high stress military situations had given him a second chance. He was going to fix whatever had gone wrong.

He saw her working under her Viper just like he had thought she would be. She had grease smudges all over her face. For some reason he thought that was probably the best thing he had seen since… well… since way too long.

Yeah. If it was the last thing he did, he would make whatever was broken inside of her right again.

After all, he had already proven it could happen before. He would just have to not get scared and run like he had the first time.

"Hey."

She froze mid screw underneath the Viper that had been her personal punching bag for the last half hour and wheeled herself out from underneath the machine. It hadn't been in her head. He was really there. She found herself wondering if he was a ghost.

Then he reached out and grabbed her hand, helping her to her feet. The breath she had been holding left her lungs in a rush as she realized that she could finally dare to hope he had made it out of that horrible Cylon attack alive. "I thought you were dead," she spit out.

Nice, Thrace. Way to tell him that you were praying to the gods harder than you had ever prayed in order to ask that they keep you in their protection. Very smooth phrasing.

He smirked at her, though, obviously not offended by her blunt words. "Well I thought you were in hack."

"It's goo-" She cleared her throat as she felt tears of joy begin to choke up inside her. "It's good to be wrong."

At least that one sounded a lot more like what she was really feeling.

"Well, you should be used to it by now."

All right. Now she had a dilemma. She either wanted to pull him into a massive hug at the sight of that arrogant grin on his face or she wanted to deck him so that it would be wiped clean off. She decided neither option was plausible if she wanted to stay out of the brig. "Everyone had a skill."

Then they bridged into silence, their eyes bearing into each other. She suddenly felt naked. Why was he staring at her so intently? And why did it remind her of the way Zak used to look at her after they… well, the morning after.

And just like that he broke the intimacy of their contact by looking away. "So… so how… how go the repairs?"

Was the perfect Captain Adama actually struggling for words? Suddenly things were looking up. She hadn't had such a promising target for her taunts and jokes since Helo. Frak. Don't think about him now. He wasn't here anymore. Focus on the fact that Lee was here. "On track. Another hour and she'll be ready to launch."

And suddenly the first taunt popped into her head. Yeah. Things were looking up even though there had just been an armageddon tearing its way through humanity.

"So I guess you're the new CAG now."

* * *

Lee sat in the Viper that had been so brutally pinned to the launch tube wall. He knew that Galactica's crew would have the tube sealed off and would be making their way towards the wrecked Vipers within minutes. He wished he didn't have to wait for them to let him out before talking to Kara.

He had no fraking clue why she hadn't left him behind. It was what they had both been trained to do in a time of crisis. Each pilot's life was worth the same as the next, no matter who it is. No matter whose son they are. She could have easily taken the one imminent casualty that would only slightly hurt the Fleet and multiplied it into two casualties which would devastate the little bit of progress they had made so far.

Her words as she screamed at him to shut up and hold still echoed through his head. He had ordered her to leave him behind, but she hadn't listened. Seeing as he was a Captain and she was a Lieutenant, he had the right to ground her for disobeying a direct order. But somehow he felt the fact that she had saved his life would make that a little too hard on both of them.

But still his mind kept going back to why she couldn't leave him behind. It insinuated that she thought he was too important to sacrifice.

He wasn't. When it came down to it, he wasn't even a part of Galactica. The fact that he was the CAG meant nothing. Any one of the other Lieutenants on board could do just as good of a job. So why had she risked her life, the one that was definitely not worthy of sacrifice, to keep him alive?

Why the frak did she do it?

As his cockpit suddenly flew open and he was surrounded by crewmen, he resolved himself to ask her the second he was free.

But then chaos erupted as he heard the shouts of the XO echoing through the tube. He was berating Starbuck for doing such a stupid move, and she was shouting back at him that if he cared for William Adama as much as everyone thought, he wouldn't be asking her that.

So, she had made the choice because of his father?

Her eyes locked with his for a second before she turned back to yelling at Colonel Tigh. The emotion he saw in them made his whole body stiffen.

She looked like she was about to cry. Which made him think that maybe it had something to do with Zak. That was the only thing that seemed to make her cry these days.

Because if it wasn't about Zak, then there was a lot of unspoken confliction stirring up between them that he couldn't just attribute to the stress of having his brother's memory hanging over them. He suddenly remembered the confliction he had felt all those years where he had tried to come to terms with Zak's death and with his feelings of guilt because he had loved the woman he couldn't dare to dream loved him back.

She had killed him. She had passed him when he should have failed. His death was no one's fault but her own.

Those words didn't seem even a little bit right. She might want to take all the guilt on her own shoulders, but that's not where it belonged.

He watched as she stomped away from Tigh. Asking her why he was so important would have to wait.

Maybe he could ask her on the day that the Cylons were finally beaten. Then they might be able to face up to the fact that they were both important to one another for reasons that made no sense.

But frak, didn't those reasons feel right?

* * *

Kara continued screaming at her asshole of an Executive Officer. Why the frak was he screwing with her when he knew the Old Man had practically ordered her not to leave Lee behind? Granted, she hadn't planned on it even before it had been an unofficial official order, but Tigh didn't know that.

Tigh's continued yelling that she could have gotten herself killed for no good reason suddenly made her want to cry. It wasn't like she didn't know the reality of the situation. She knew the day she signed up to be a Viper pilot that her life would exist from one close call to the next. One of these days the call wouldn't be a little too close and she would be gone.

But that wasn't why her emotions were starting to overwhelm her.

Her eyes locked onto Lee's where he stood in front of his Viper. There were noticeable rips and tears to his flight uniform that must have happened upon their hard impact with the hanger tube deck. He looked genuinely shell shocked for the first time since their whole race had been systematically exterminated by the toasters. She knew it wasn't because of his near-death experience either.

She would bet all her money on the fact that he was relieving her last confession in the hangar bay before they took off. He was wondering why she had found the courage to save him when she was too much of a coward to do what was right and save Zak.

Not even she could give him an answer to that.

All she had thought in those few moments up in the sky when she believed she was going to lose Lee was she couldn't let it happen again. She couldn't let the Old Man's only son be taken away. Another Adama was not going to die when she could save him.

She returned to yelling at Tigh. She didn't want to think about how close she had come to losing him.

And she didn't want to dwell on the reasons why losing Lee seemed like just about the worst thing that could have happened to her.

* * *

Lee walked away from the Viper, empty pill canister in hand, laughing to himself. She had always been cranky when she was tired.

He paused as he realized he had no real right to know that. It had been something Zak had mentioned in passing one of the few times he had talked to him during the time his brother had dated Kara. She had been on the warpath because her instructing schedule hadn't given her more than two hours sleep at a time. Zak had told him about it, and somehow Lee had remembered.

One of these days, he would have to stop kidding himself. These little details about Kara weren't something he just remembered out of the blue. He had committed them to memory. He had held on tight to every little detail he could get about Kara Thrace from the moment he discovered her as a little blonde thing in the middle of a briefing room of nuggets.

She was fascinating.

He turned back to sneak one last glance at her. She had her back to him, already in a rather intense discussion with the young Specialist named Cally. They were presumably debating about how her Viper was running and whether its shortcomings were the pilot or the crew's fault. Without warning, Kara turned and smiled at him, giving a mock salute.

He saluted her back.

He felt a voice in his head nagging him as to why he let her get away with the things she did to him. She made his life on Galactica as the CAG twice as hard as it should be. Yes, he didn't know any of the pilots. Yes, he still wasn't sure he was qualified to lead them. And yes, he felt like an idiot because he was still getting lost in the winding corridors of the Battlestar.

But shouldn't the one person he knew be helping to ease the burden? She was his friend, wasn't she?

Yet she caused him so much grief. He just stepped back and let her. She was right when she said he was trying to be her friend and not her CAG. He should be sticking with the basics. He didn't know these pilots. He had no obligation to make their lives easy.

But it was different with Kara, isn't it?

You know her, don't you? And you consider her your friend even if neither of you has ever said it out loud? And you want her to be more, don't you? That's why you let her walk all over you.

"No," he hissed as he started stalking out of the hangar bay. "No. You put all that behind you when Zak died. She's just a friend. A friend and one of your pilots."

He had always been a bad liar.

* * *

Kara stepped away from Cally and looked at her wounded bird. She had run it into the ground during the 200 or so launches she had done in the past five days. It would only get worst, too. She should just be grateful that she was still able to get the Mark II into the air. It hadn't seen this kind of beating since the first Cylon War.

And why the frak was she thinking about that at a time like this?

"Because you're in the middle of the second Cylon War, you idiot," she hissed at herself.

"Lieutenant Thrace." She turned her attention back to the demure Specialist who was one of the few people she respected enough to allow unlimited access to her Viper. "Um… I was just wondering… well… don't you think you might have been a little too hard on the Captain? He only wanted you to take a few pills."

"I'm going to let that little comment slide because I know you're just as tired and rundown as I am."

Cally's eyes went wide as she realized how out of place her comment had been. "I'm sorry."

"Not a problem. Because I'm so tired and I obviously don't know any better, I'm going to answer you." Kara gave her a wry smile. "I am hard on Captain Adama because he needs someone to be. He has lived his life too easily, riding on the fact that he's the son of a military commander."

She cringed inside. She couldn't believe she was taking up the excuse that all those ridiculous idiots in Academy had used whenever they had to explain why they felt it necessary to give Lee a hard time. But she couldn't go and tell Cally that she was hard on Lee because she knew he was going to make a damn fine CAG as soon as he accepted that the job was his.

Cally seemed to accept her lie of an answer and went off to use her thirty-three minutes wisely. Maybe the kid would actually be allowed a small nap this time.

Shrugging her flight suit off, Kara made the decision to work on her bird while those damn pills began to kick in. Soon she would be too jumpy to help the crew with their burden.

The burden of living.

That was the worst.

It was hard to keep going on this fraking thirty-three minute cycles.

That was really why she had been so hard on Lee. Sure, it had partially been because she knew he needed someone to shock him into doing his job right. Because men like Lee were cut out to lead. They just needed a little instruction from time to time. She had learned that in her time with the Old Man.

But the Old Man had never worried her as much as Lee did. Which brought her back to her real reasoning behind the screaming and yelling. If she kept him either angry at her words or laughing at her stupidity, then he wouldn't start to wonder if maybe it would all be easier just to give up and let the Cylons take him this cycle.

She was well aware that she was clinging to him. He was a thread to the innocent, naïve life she had led before losing Zak. He reminded her of those days in the Academy when she still believed she could raise herself up to the highest levels in the military.

And there was something in the way he smiled at her when he thought she wasn't looking.

Something that she couldn't put words to. All she knew was that little smile meant to go unnoticed was what kept her from surrendering to the temptation of letting a Cylon take one well-aimed shot at her.

* * *

Kara stared through the scope on her gun as the pandemonium her gunshot had caused slowly died down. At first, she had been angry at Lee for screwing up her one chance to get rid of the humanity's last real criminal. After swearing for a minute straight, she had calmed down and taken a look at the scene unfolding below her.

Lee was talking to the prisoners and Zarek. Whatever he was saying was keeping the situation calm. She looked at Cally, who lay bleeding on the cot in the cell. She was going to be okay. The kid was tough. Hell. It looked like she had bit some prisoner's ear off. Exaggerations of what had happened would make her the second toughest woman left in the Fleet.

She heard someone yelling into the ear piece about the fact that there still was no medical attention available. Kara shrugged it off. Like she had said, Cally was tough. She'd tough it out until someone got here.

The next person she focused on from her vantage point was Zarek, who was sitting crouched on the floor. He looked like he was crying. Pathetic. Lee shouldn't have saved him.

Why did Lee save him? She couldn't remember one reason why he might have sympathized with the known terrorist. Lee had always seemed the type of guy who ran the straight and narrow. Life was black and white. There was no such thing as grey.

But saving Tom Zarek was as grey as it got.

She trained her sight onto Lee even as the Marine team leader started screaming for her to get down to prison level to help contain the residents of the Astral Queen. He was pretty beaten up, and she could practically taste the mental fatigue written all over his face. Whatever Zarek had said to him, whatever had been done to him, it wasn't just going to go away when they got him off this ship.

Lee wasn't invincible. The wounds on his head where he must have been so brutally beaten practically screamed it at her. He could be hurt. He could be killed.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

Kara felt herself drop the gun and go running. They needed her down on the prison deck. Her sudden urge to follow orders had nothing to do with having to reassure herself that Lee was all right.

* * *

Lee was screaming orders at the Marines that were filling down onto the prison deck. He couldn't understand why Galactica hadn't gotten a medical team here yet. The young Specialist who had been so brave and fought her captor so hard was in needless pain.

He ripped an ear piece out of the nearest Marine's ear. "Galactica! Where the frak is the med team?"

"They are en route," came back the stiff answer.

Lee groaned and threw the headset down. He really wished that Dee was behind the communications panel and not here on the Astral Queen. He still had no idea why she was here. She had no real purpose.

Turning back, he stopped to look at Dee, who was holding Cally's hand tightly in hers. "How are you…" His voice cut off as he saw the young girl wince in pain.

"She's holding up, Captain," Dee said with a smile. "She's from Galactica."

Lee nodded. That was the sentiment he had heard from a lot of his pilots. They thought they were a tougher breed than the other Battlestars' enlisted and non-enlisted crew. From what he had seen, everything they thought was true. The people he was surrounded with were as tough as they came.

Speaking of tough, he wondered where Kara was. The shot that had been intended for Zarek would have been right on the mark if Lee hadn't pushed him out of the way. He didn't know anyone else who had that kind of accuracy except for her.

So she was on the Astral Queen. Why hadn't she come down to the deck level to help him keep things in control? Not that he really expected her too. She had already proven in their short time together that she didn't look out for anyone but herself. One second she was in a good mood and doing her best to make him laugh. The next she was screaming at him to shut up and do his job.

"Damnit, Lee," he muttered to himself as he started walking the length of the prison deck corridor again in order to make sure that everything was running smoothly. "You know why she isn't down here. You just saved the life of the fraking terrorist who tore a divide in Sagittarian society. She's disgusted."

Lee still wasn't sure why he had done it. All he knew was it felt like the right thing to do. He hadn't followed his instincts like that in a long, long time. Usually when he did, it never ended well. So he had learned to ignore his instincts and follow his head which told him what was expected of him, what was the right thing to do.

It seemed his opinion on his instincts was right. He had saved Zarek and lost Kara in the process.

It never ended well.

"Lee!" He turned as he heard her scream and barely had time to duck as she launched her fist at his face. "What the frak did you think you were doing? I had my shot!"

"Your shot wasn't needed. I had the situation under control."

She flipped the ridiculous helmet the Marines must have forced her to wear off her head and glared at him. "Do you call getting the best Specialist we have shot in the side having the situation under control?

And suddenly he was glad to be arguing with her. It meant he hadn't lost her after all.

* * *

"FRAK!" Kara yelled as the Cylon Raider sputtered to a dead silence.

She had almost had it. Power was up and running. She had pitch. She had yaw. Why the frak couldn't she get roll?

"FRAK!" she screamed again.

She could not die this way. The great Starbuck did not crash land on some filthy planet that wasn't even good enough for cockroaches to live on. She went out in a blaze of glory. She didn't suffocate to death when all the oxygen in an enemy aircraft ran out because she couldn't get fraking roll.

She punched the guts of the Raider and felt a satisfying ripple run through the ship around her. "Yeah, that's right! I'm talking to you, you putrid piece of crap!"

She brought the power back up with her left heel. This ship was going to be her saving grace. It was going to be her ticket back home to Galactica. She would be going home, and it would be taking her there.

Then she would be able to fix the mess she had made before leaving. She would train those nuggets to the point of exhaustion, but when she was done they would be the best pilots the Old Man had ever seen. Then maybe he could realize how much she had changed since Zak died. Then maybe he could look past his anger and see that she was dying inside with guilt.

Adama hadn't held any anger against Lee who so obviously had accused him falsely of pushing Zak to his death. He would forgive her eventually. He had to.

She was holding on to that thought just as tightly as she was holding on to the belief that the Old Man had sent someone after her. There had to be Vipers in the air right now searching this planet for her. He might have insinuated that he was washing his hands of her, but he wouldn't actually leave her for dead. They had gone through too much together.

Don't forget Lee.

Lee already knew the mistakes you've made. You told him weeks ago, and he still chose to talk to you. He still chose to treat you like you were worthwhile. He wouldn't let his father be stubborn enough to let you go without at least attempting to save you.

Lee cared for you too much, Kara.

"What the frak are you saying?" she asked herself quietly as she fiddled with the stringy tendons that were near her right hand. "He cares for you? How do you know that he cares for you? You're nothing more than his brother's old girlfriend."

Her hand faltered as she realized what she had said. His brother's old girlfriend. Not the other way around. She identified Zak as being Lee's brother. She didn't think of Lee as just being Zak's brother. When had she started thinking of Zak only as an offshoot of Lee?

That was another thought for another day. Preferably one in which she wasn't marooned on a planet with only three of the four fundamentals of flying at her disposal.

"You will roll for me," she said, punching the Raider again.

* * *

Lee held the phone out to his father and listened in horror as the search for Kara was terminated. President Roslin's words rang through his head. He respected this woman. He trusted this woman. He believed this woman.

And yet he didn't want to give up looking for their missing pilot.

He couldn't give up on her. And he couldn't understand why his father would either. Grasping on to the one thing he had managed to understand from the President's tirade, he turned to his father, "I want you to know. I think she's wrong. I think we have come to terms with what happened to Zak."

"I haven't."

His father's voice was cold and extremely straightforward like always. Of course his father hadn't come to terms with it, he scolded himself. Only weeks ago neither one of them had had any clue about Kara's part in Zak's death and Lee was still blaming his father entirely for the accident.

He turned to leave, knowing somewhere deep inside him that his father didn't really want to stop searching for Kara. If he was honest with himself, they both loved Kara more than they loved one another. She was their pillar of strength.

The thought of his father loving a woman he had only known for a few years over the son he had known from birth made him pause and turn back. His father was looking at him expectantly. "I need to know something. Why did you do this? Why did we do this? Is it for Kara? For Zak? For what?"

"Kara was family," his father started out. The casual use of the past tense struck Lee to the core. His father had really given up on her. "You do whatever you have to do. Sometimes you break the rules."

"And if it was me down there instead?"

His father narrowed his eyes and hissed, "You don't have to ask that."

Lee's mind flashed to the moments he had seen Kara with his father. They acted like family. He treated her like a daughter. Her relationship with him was the polar opposite of Lee's. There was genuine love in the eyes of both Kara and William Adama when they spoke to or about one another. He didn't have that.

"Are you sure?"

"If it were you… we'd never leave."

The words made Lee's eyes sting. His father's tone had changed to an open, brutal honesty that he had never heard before. He gave his father a short nod of understanding before turning and leaving like he had first intended.

His father had said when someone is family, then you do what you have to do. You break the rules. Lee had always stuck to the rules for all his life. Sometimes he thought it was his only downfall.

Well, not this time. His father was right. Kara was family. And family meant more than anything else these days.

He had to get to the CIC within a few minutes to prepare for the FTL launch out of the system. There had to be something he could think up by then, some way to get this rescue mission reinstated, some way to buy Kara a little more time, some way to keep the Fleet from jumping away and letting her die.

But there was nothing. As hard as he concentrated, as much as he tried, there was no solution. He had no way of rescuing her short of commandeering a Viper and going rogue. He was two steps away from running out of the CIC and doing just that when Dee announced Dradis contact.

The bastards who took Kara away from him. Even if there was nothing he could do to save her, there was that.

There was revenge.

* * *

Kara stared in confusion as Lee turned around in circles as he entered the bunkroom. She had seen a lot of jittery pilots in her days, but never Lee. It wasn't in his genetic makeup to be spooked. She watched as he let out a sigh of relief and sat down on his bunk. He looked exhausted in every sense of the term.

"Frak me! What happened to you?"

Lee jumped off the bed and made a motion to pull a gun from the holster around his belt that wasn't there.

Gods. He was tense. He couldn't even remember that he was in his dress blues and not his flight suit.

She pushed up off her bed and walked over to him. "It's just me. Relax. It's not like I'm a Cylon coming to get you."

"Not funny," Lee hissed as he sat down and tried to make his breathing return to normal.

"What's got you so wired? Because if I find out there is some source of caffeine still in this universe and I didn't know about it, shit is going to hit the fraking fan."

"No. It's not that. It's Ell-"

"What were you saying?"

She could see realization dawn on Lee's face as he realized he had gone too far. Whatever had scared him was also making him sloppy. "It's the XO's wife."

"She trying to kill you?"

"If you mean death by appealing to a man's sex-starved libido, then yes, she is definitely trying to kill me."

"No way! Ellen Tigh is hitting on you!"

"That's putting it lightly," Lee said as she slid off his coat, not even taking the time to hang it up. The piece of clothing ended up in a pile next to his bed as he stretched out on the bed again. "The woman practically molested me underneath the table while we were having dinner. With the President present, no less."

Kara's eyes widened as she imagined what Lee was referring to. Wow. The Old Man had been right. Ellen Tigh was pure evil. "Do you need me to protect you from her?"

"Frak off, Kara. She just made me jumpy. She didn't make me a coward that has to hide behind the local frak-up."

"Hey! I resent that." She walked over and sat down on Lee's bed. "I'm the galactic frak-up now. We're the only humans left in the universe."

"How could I forget?"

Kara sat in silence, staring down at Lee who was now hiding his eyes behind his hands. "Lee?"

"Please don't make fun of me anymore. I can't take it right now."

"I wasn't going to. I just wanted to know… well… did you like it?"

He threw his hands down to his sides and gave her a funny look. "What do you mean?"

Gods, she hated it when she got so curious about things she had no business knowing. "I mean, you must have been getting lonely, being all alone here in space. For one second, if you forgot that it was Tigh's wife, did you enjoy it?"

"No," he said resolutely. "Not for one second."

"Because it was Tigh's wife."

"No. Because it wasn't--" His eyes widened in horror at what he had been about to say.

"Wasn't?" she prompted.

"I am not talking about this anymore."

"Oh come on. You were about to tell me something. It's not good to let things sit on your chest."

He shook his head and she swore silently to herself. It was killing her not to know what he was going to say. Because she really wanted the words her wild imagination had cooked up to finish his sentence to be true.

She bit her lip and stared down at him. Come on, Lee. Do a girl a favor and not make this hard. Can't you just admit that you might have been saying that you didn't enjoy it because it wasn't me?

He sighed and sat up. "Because it was just about the worst scenario possible. Ellen Tigh. My father and President Roslin sitting a few feet away. Enjoying it wasn't even an option."

"Oh."

"Why? What did you think I was going to say?"

She had to think fast. "I thought that maybe you were about to admit that you actually had romantic feelings towards someone on this ship. We don't get enough of the tortured love gossip. It would have been nice."

"No such luck."

Yeah, tell me about it, she thought to herself.

* * *

Kara heard herself telling him that he would be just fine, but she knew they both were aware that she wasn't exactly believing herself. The darkness of the main projector room on Galactica should at least help mask some of the lie even if he could still hear it in her voice.

"Look," Apollo said, glaring at her, "you're worried that I'm not going to pull it out of the fire with some high-risk, retina-detaching move the way Starbuck would. Well, Kara, I'm sorry you're not suiting up. Because, believe me, everyone will feel so much better, me included, if you were riding along with us. But this isn't an ego trip. This is my job. And don't think for one moment that I will not get it done."

Gods. He really thought she had no faith in him. Well, she might as well seal the deal. "I hope so. Because we've got one shot. Don't frak it up by over thinking."

Seeing the look of devastation come across his face, she turned on heel and left him alone. When she reached the hall, she leaned herself up against the first out of the way nook and tried to catch her breath.

The memory of the first time she saw that look was haunting her. It was the day she had taken him on unofficially in the flight simulator at Academy, and he had wiped the floor with her. She had made him angry, and it pushed him to be a better pilot.

Thoughts of that day had been popping up at the most random times since she had first found out Lee was going to lead the squadron of Vipers into battle. She hadn't been sure of why until only moments before she asked Lee to stay after the briefing.

She smacked her fists against the wall in front of her face in frustration as she felt herself suddenly feel the desperate need to cry. It had been hard, but she had done what she came there to do. She had given him the motivation he would need to get the job done. Like always, the Fleet was in good hands.

The hands of a god to be precise.

* * *

Lee watched her walk away as if it meant nothing that she had just admitted how little she really thought of him. She had seen him fly too many times for them to count. She knew what he could do. And still she thought he was going to blow it.

And yet you still love her.

Gods. He really wished that little voice in his head would just stop. It was constantly nagging at him, pointing out that Kara could do no wrong. He would always have these forbidden feelings for her even if she was holding a gun to his head and screaming if he didn't give it up she would shoot him. He would let himself die.

Oh. Well, that was a nice mental picture.

Time to stop drowning in sorrow and start thinking up every possible angle for this mission. He had gotten them into this jam by wasting all that fuel trying to save a woman who could so obviously save herself every time.

The fact that his faith in her abilities had never wavered, not once, was too ironic for him to even comprehend.

* * *

He practically flew out of the cockpit to bask in the praise of his fellow pilots. He had pulled off an impossible plan that she wasn't even sure she could have done. He had pushed himself outside the box and saved all of humanity.

Not bad for one day's work.

Kara watched him pull Cally into a full hug. He must be pretty happy if he was so obviously willing to violate the fraternization policy that seemed to be the law by which he lived. She should know. She kept a close enough watch.

"Apollo, you magnificent bastard! That was one hell of a piece of flying, and I couldn't have done it better myself."

He feigned like he hadn't heard her over the chaos around. "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."

Okay. After what she put him through, he deserved to hear it twice. "I said I couldn't have done it better myself."

"Well, thank you," he said, toasting his drink at her.

"I had my doubts," she admitted. That was close enough to the truth. She didn't doubt his flying ability. She doubted her plan.

"So did I." She gave him a look of surprise. No way would the Lee she knew have let her lack of faith transfer into his own feelings of inadequacy. "I wasn't sure that crazy ass plan of yours could even possibly work."

Okay. Guess the feelings of her own inadequacy were mutual. She could live with that. She could live with anything if it meant he would go on smiling like that. For once it didn't seem like he had the weight of their world and the next on his shoulders.

"You deserve this," she said, holding a cigar out to him. She hoped he wouldn't notice it was the same brand that his father smoked. If he ever found out she had given him her welcome home present from flying that Cylon Raider back to the Fleet, she would never live it down.

He didn't notice.

She watched as he smoked and laughed with those around him. And it was at that moment, when she had forgotten about the Cylons, forgotten about the upcoming Quorum of Twelve, forgotten about the fact that her knee was still screwed up and she couldn't fly, and yes, even forgotten about Zak and the role he still played in her life… It was at that moment that she realized why everyone had doubted Lee.

Her presence in his life was holding him back. Having Starbuck as a friend was like shoving yourself as far away from the spotlight as you could.

He was better than her, and they both knew it. But that knowledge ended there. With the possible exception of the Old Man, no other person understood why Lee was the right choice for CAG and the right choice to go on this mission. No one understood how lucky they were that he had been on board Galactica when the Cylons chose to attack.

She stared at his blatant happiness for a moment before fading away into the background. Let him enjoy his day in the sun. And maybe it will last past the point when she got back into the sky.

Gods. She wanted that to last for him.

* * *

Lee laughed as Cally pulled him into a hug. She really was his favorite deckhand by far. And for two seconds, he actually let himself believe he could tell her that. But then the memory of the fraternization policy kicked in and he pulled back from her. He couldn't tell her. There was no way.

His eyes rested on where Kara stood in front of him. If he couldn't tell Cally how much he liked her, then he certainly couldn't tell this phenomenal woman how much he loved her.

"Apollo, you magnificent bastard! That was one hell of a piece of flying, and I couldn't have done it better myself."

Her words erased the last bits of anger he had kept trapped up inside, but he wasn't going to admit that to her. In fact, he probably deserved to make her say it at least ten more times just to make sure it was committed to memory properly. "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."

"I said I couldn't have done it better myself."

Nope. Twice was definitely enough. Tipping his drink to her, he smiled, "Well, thank you."

"I had my doubts."

He wondered why she thought he hadn't picked up on that. She practically told him there was no way she could count on him to do the job that she was destined for. Okay. Maybe the anger wasn't totally gone.

He gave her a small nod. "So did I." Okay. That surprised her. This would be more fun if he was actually the type of person who enjoyed hurting others. He had never really gotten the hang of that sadly. "I wasn't sure that crazy ass plan of yours could even possibly work."

That made her laugh. Gods, he had missed hearing that. It seemed like she hadn't laughed for him in way too long.

"You deserve this."

He snapped out of his little daydream to stare down at the cigar she held out to him. He recognized it immediately. His father had given it to her as a way of saying he was sorry for his harsh words after he found out about Zak.

Oh gods, Lee. Don't think about Zak right now. You're too happy to think about Zak.

Frak. Was it wrong to think that? He didn't know.

He turned to talk to a few of the Specialists who were laughing and joking around him. He really should try to get to know these people better. They probably thought he was a god for what he had done since they didn't really know him. Because it seemed like all the people who knew him had figured he couldn't do it.

Okay. Anger still present.

He laughed as the pretty girl next to him actually called him a god to his face. Maybe he was finally living up to the call sign Kara had unintentionally branded him with back in Academy.

As the people continued to surround him with their congratulations, his mind went back to the vision of Kara laughing.

That little moment had made all the trouble he had gone through worth it.

* * *

Lee's words rang through her ears as she made her way back to the shuttle that would take her to the Quorum on Cloud Nine. He had practically accused her of being some sort of dirty slob who wouldn't know how to clean herself up if it was a matter of life or death. He had meant it in joking, but it still kind of stung.

Trying to remember, she guessed he had never really seen her when she was out of the normal regulation clothing that military gave them. Though she had always thought she looked just fine when she wore that little zip-up green hoodie and left out the double tanks. She had caught many a male pilot on Galactica staring at how nice and clean the hoodie made her… eyes look.

Fine. If Lee wanted to know what he was missing, she would show him.

She waltzed over and picked up the first service phone she saw. "CIC," she heard Dee's familiar voice say.

"Dee, it's Starbuck. I need you to do me a favor. Word on the ship is there's a big celebration going down after the election, and it can't be stopped even if Zarek wins. I need a dress for it."

"A dress? But I thought dress blues were acceptable for you officers."

"They are. I just don't want to wear them."

"Does this have something to do with a certain Captain?"

Kara's heart froze. Gods. Was she that obvious? "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I saw you staring at Captain Holt the other day in the mess."

At first, she had no idea what Dee was talking about. But then she remembered the Captain in question having eaten a rather disgusting slop of whatever they were calling a meal that day. He had gotten it all over him, and yet no one was pointing it out. She couldn't help but stare. "Dee, I really don't want to talk about it."

"All right. I'll see what I can do."

Kara hung up the phone with a satisfying smack. Take that, Lee!

She let out a small laugh before it suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea why it was so important that she show Lee how wrong he was about her hygiene. When had she started carrying about her appearance in that way?

About the time the Twelve Colonies were decimated and a certain Captain got stranded on your ship, you self-deluded moron.

She really hated that nagging voice in her head that always told the truth.

* * *

These were the things that ran through his head when he first realized that it was Kara standing before him.

"My gods. She is the most beautiful sight left in this world."

"I was wrong. Hygiene has never looked so fine."

"Shouldn't I feel guilty for staring?"

"Zak would be so proud of her."

"I wish that I could just smuggle her away to the bunkroom. It was bound to be empty. The whole Fleet is on this stupid luxury liner."

"She looks breakable. Vulnerable. Not like herself."

"Everyone is watching her. Are they watching me? Are they wondering what I'm doing talking to her? Do they know what I'm saying? Do they know how ridiculous I sound? Do they know what I'm thinking? Oh gods, I hope they don't know what I'm thinking."

"Wow."

"I need ambrosia."

"Wonder what my father thinks of her dress."

"Frak."

But the thought that shook him up the most was "She did this for me and only me."

* * *

Kara had thrown caution to the wind after downing her fourth glass of ambrosia and let Lee lead her onto the dance floor. If she couldn't do this now with the perfect excuse of blaming it on the alcohol in the morning, when could she do it?

Surprisingly, he didn't protest nor did he push her away as she rested her head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped themselves around her and held her in close.

And suddenly she was scared to death. She hadn't known it was possible to be this happy.

She hadn't felt like this. Not even with Zak.

Zak. Oh gods. She had forgotten. Oh gods. Oh gods. This was wrong. She had to pull away from Lee. She had to stop thinking about how happy she was. About how happy he made her. Happiness only led to heartache for a girl like her. Oh gods. She didn't want to kill Lee. Frak. How could she possibly save him from herself?

Before she could come up with a solution, Dr. Baltar stepped forward and asked to cut in. When she saw the relieved look on Lee's face, she realized that the whole moment between them must have been entirely in her head.

Good. It was easier that way.

But when Dr. Baltar pulled her close and she closed her eyes to the world, she couldn't lie to herself. She was wishing that Lee hadn't left.

But he had left her, hadn't he?

And she wasn't afraid to admit how much that hurt.

* * *

Lee felt Kara sink into his arms. He had only asked her to dance with him. He hadn't expected her to show so much enthusiasm. In fact, he was pretty sure that their closeness was against some Fleet policy.

But frak it. For once, he couldn't give a care about what policy dictated.

For the first time in days, Zak's voice echoed through his head. "How about love, Lee? Do you love her?"

His brother had asked him that day on Atlantia if he loved Kara. He had lied to him. He had told him there was no way he could love the same woman that his brother was so infatuated with. In his heart, he knew that he had loved her with everything he had at that moment.

And now?

Now he loved her even more.

And it scared him to death. Because he could never have her. There was just too much baggage.

Dr. Baltar interrupted him before he could come up with a reason why the baggage didn't matter. It seemed Lee wasn't the only one who wanted to dance with Kara. He gave the good doctor a smile of relief. If he could just get some distance between himself and Kara, then maybe he wouldn't end up doing anything stupid.

He still looked at hopefully. If she said no to Baltar like he thought she would, then he can blame whatever happened on her. Maybe the guilt of loving Kara would be less that way.

But she surprised him by slipping out of his hold and into Baltar's. He stood there looking like an idiot as she assumed the same position with the doctor that she had just been in with him.

He had obviously misread what she was feeling.

And he wasn't afraid to admit to himself how much that hurt.

* * *

Gaius. Dr. Baltar. Dr. Gaius Baltar. Gaius. Gaius. Gaius.

How come every time she said his name Lee's image was still the one she saw in her head?

She had no idea why she was connecting the two men. They were nothing the same.

Lee. Gaius.

Nope. They didn't even sound the same.

There was no way to pawn it off. Her body had been in bed with one man while her mind was in bed with the other.

She passed one of her fellow pilots in the hall and gave him a mock salute with one hand while still holding her dress up with the other. There would be a lot of questions for her for the rest of the day. No one in the Fleet could turn down the opportunity to spread a little bit of good gossip.

And it wasn't everyday that the almighty Starbuck hustled down the halls in a half-worn dress looking like she had spent the whole night fraking the new Vice President of the Twelve Colonies.

Even after she had made her way to the bunkroom, she still couldn't figure out why she had said Lee's name. True, there had been a lot of ambrosia going around the night before, and she had spent a lot of time with Lee. But she wasn't stupid. The alcohol had worn off by the wee hours of the morning. And Lee had so callously left her in the hands of Baltar hours before.

Gods. She couldn't believe it. She had been thinking about Lee the whole time, as if it was he touching her in all the right places and not the new Vice-President. She had been closing her eyes and picturing the way her legs would wrap around his body, urging him closer. And she had been moaning his name in the hopes that the Lee in her mind would turn out to be the man in her… well… body.

Then, she had opened her eyes and realized that she was a fraking moron.

Shrugging out of the dress and throwing on her usual tanks and sweats, she slid into bed.

Sleep might help her avoid the problem for a little while.

And that was what she was best at. Avoidance.

Her eyes drifted over to Lee's bunk. The curtain was shut, denying her the information of whether or not he was inside.

She rolled her eyes and scolded herself silently. _And what if he was inside, Kara? What the frak would you do? Pull back the curtain and join him? Tell him the funny story about how you were fraking the Vice President and said his name? Admit that you were hurt when he just handed you over the night before on Cloud Nine? Just throw caution to the mind and assault his body with your tongue? Admit that you have been confused about your feelings for him since he walked into that bar on Picon all those years earlier?_

It was official, she decided as she slid her curtain closed to hide from the outside world. She was pitiful.

* * *

His father's suggestion rang through Lee's head long after William Adama had returned to his post in the CIC.

"You got to lose control. Let your instincts take over."

His father wanted him to let go? He didn't understand what he was asking.

Lee had let himself go for one second the night before. He had let his instincts take control and had found Kara secure in his arms. Stares and whispered comments were ignored. Feelings were felt.

And then life served him up another frak you.

She didn't even hesitate to move on.

Boxing with his father had always helped him work out his aggression, but this time he really held back. He wanted to let go and just let the man who was making his life so damn difficult for no reason he could see cry out in submission. But instead he found himself on the floor having been knocked around by life and by his father for too damn long.

Control issues, his father said. He had control issues.

Well, he could agree with that. The only problem was he didn't have a problem with too much control. He had a problem with not enough control.

When it came to Kara, he had none. He lost every semblance of control when she was close enough to touch, to smell, to taste. She assaulted his five senses at once and threw all coherent thoughts in his head far, far away.

He ripped his boxing gloves off and tossed them into a corner.

He had control issues.

But it was nothing a punching bag couldn't fix.

At least, he hoped.

* * *

Pilot who couldn't keep her pants on?

Was that really all he thought of her? After all they had been through together?

Kara rubbed the bruise that was already forming on her jaw and hissed in pain. He sure hadn't forgotten how to hit.

Frak. She should have known after that little show of domination by Dr. Baltar in the pilot ready room that Lee would figure out what he was referring to. At least, he would figure out the parts already known by the notorious gossips of the Fleet, and those would probably only be the parts Dr. Baltar wished to divulge to others.

That other part. The important part. The part that had made her flee Gaius's room like there was a herd of Cylons coming for her. Lee would never, ever, ever know about that.

Kara toyed with the tools in front of her, unconsciously lining them up in order of their scarcity in the new world that couldn't reproduce tools. Maybe if she just told him what she had said when Gaius was… well, when she was… when they were…

"Frak. I can't even think it," she said, rolling her eyes and pushing the tools back into one big pile. "How the hell am I supposed to say it to him?"

She knew she had to do something, though. He was hurt. Gods know why, but he was hurt by what she had done. Like all her other screw-ups, she wasn't going to rest until she fixed this. She just hoped it wouldn't take two years like her last mistake which had managed to horribly divide a father and his son.

First off, things were not going to get better if she just sat here and lost herself in her thoughts. She needed to stop worrying about how bad of a mess she had gotten into and focus on the things that she would actually need to begin repairing the damage.

She hated to admit it but she would actually need Gaius Baltar back aboard Galactica if she wanted to be successful in her little repair mission. Lee probably wouldn't believe a word of what she was going to tell him if Baltar wasn't right there to admit his humiliation or to back up her story.

Wait. Would a proud man like the good doctor really readily admit his humiliation?

Kara flexed the muscles in her hand. Baltar would admit whatever the frak she wanted him to.

Because she had not forgotten how to punch either.

* * *

He had never imagined himself as being too jealous to talk to her. He had lived through the time where she was so blissfully happy with his brother while he languished in a land of unrequited love. No one had ever caught on to how much he envied Zak and how much he wanted Kara.

He had always been good at keeping his mouth closed.

Still was.

She had looked him straight in the eyes, so vulnerable, so brutally honest, and whispered "I'm really sorry." She had paused, almost as if everything she believed in hung on the next words to come out of his mouth. Almost as if she would finally self-destruct if he gave her a little push either way.

And he had turned on heel and ran.

His jealousy and his cowardice had caused him to flee at the one turning point in their relationship.

He finally felt the despair that he knew everyone in the Fleet must have been dealing with since the moment they became a stranded band of survivors, together against the world.

He was alone like the rest of them.

* * *

The words echoed through Kara's ear.

I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry.

How cowardly did they sound?

She couldn't have said that she frakked up. That she hadn't meant to take home the first warm body that showed interest. That the whole point of the night hadn't been for her to quench her sexual thirst with whomever was available.

But then, the truth had never really worked out for her when it came to Lee. She had been lying to him from practically the first moment they spoke. It was a part of who they were.

Why hadn't she been able to tell him the truth this one time?

That the only reason she went with Baltar was because she couldn't go with him.

If for one glimmer of a second it had been possible…

Needless to say, she wouldn't have gone with the Galactica's resident crazy.

Biting her lip, she stared at the empty space Lee had occupied seconds earlier. The Marines were still posted, keeping an eye on the Cylon Raider. For as much as her boy was being watched, you would have thought it was made out of solid gold. Or solid nicotine and ambrosia, seeing as how they were much more precious in these times than something silly as gold.

She grabbed the wrench that she had been using to tighten a few of the bolts and got back to work. She would have time to dwell on how much of a coward she was when it came to Lee later.

Turning to look at the door Lee had rushed out of one last time, she frowned as she saw Billy Keikeya waving at her. "President Roslin wishes to speak to you immediately if you're not otherwise engaged, Lieutenant Thrace."

She had no idea what the frak was going on, but if Billy was talking in such a formal manner, it must be big. Sighing she figured the repairs could wait. She would have to fix the Raider and her personal life at some other time.

"Well, I guess keeping our collective asses far, far away from the Cylons isn't that important," she yelled to Billy even though he was already out the door.

It seemed like everyone was running from her voice these days.

* * *

"Apollo, this is Galactica. I repeat, you are ordered to bring your Viper in for debriefing."

This was the fourth time Lee had heard the order to return to the ship.

Somehow he couldn't tear himself away from the sky. It glittered slightly with the aftereffects of the Cylon Raider's FTL drive. In the back of his head, he was reminded of the trails that Kara always left behind everywhere she went. Sometimes they were trails of blood and violence. Sometimes they were trails of exaggerations and awe. Sometimes they were trails of laughter and tears of joy.

She had been right there within reach only seconds earlier. Why hadn't he figured out that she was going to do something this fraking stupid?

Because she gave you no warning, Lee.

She didn't even give you a goodbye.

Her words to ask for a secure channel with his father rang through his ears. She had felt the need to say goodbye to the Old Man. Not to him, though. He wasn't that important to her.

The small, quiet apology she had given him was also at the front of his mind. Why hadn't he said something to her? Said he knew. Said that it would just take a little time for him to forgive her. Said that he didn't want her doing anything so stupid ever again.

Gods. Kara. He was really sorry, too.

Sorry for not being strong and sorry for letting her down when she needed it the most.

The air around his Viper was cold and no longer had any sign of glitter as he kicked the ship into burn and returned to a ship that no longer felt like home.

* * *

Kara tried with all her might to get her body to shift off the machine dead beneath her. Her arms cooperated, but her legs would have nothing to do with it. Letting the pain wash over her, she found her mind focusing on the little piece of metal lying between her fallen opponent and her own badly beaten body.

This was what had caused her life to turn to shambles in less than twenty-four hours.

It hadn't broken in the fall. She didn't know what she would have done if it had. She would have traveled millions of miles just to break the thing she had been sent to retrieve. Not even she could be that big of a screw-up.

Actually, there were quite a few people she loved who would argue that she could be that big of a screw-up.

There was something metallic in her mouth. It took her a second longer than normal to recognize the taste of her own blood. It shouldn't have taken her that long. She was off. Guess fighting a Cylon will do that, she thought.

Her neck could shift a few inches. That was a good sign.

The last time she had been this badly injured was--

No. Don't think about him.

She found herself asking why. Why couldn't she think about Lee? If not now as she lay incapacitated on top of a dead toaster knowing there was no way she could get out of this situation, then when?

She was tired of having to tell herself not to think about him. Not to think about how much he meant to her. Not to think about how much he stood for. How much she needed him and how much he didn't need her.

It hurt.

Pain. At least she could still feel the pain inside her.

Lee's face wouldn't leave her head. She kept imagining what he would be doing at this moment as she began to give up the invincible spirit she never thought she'd lose. On a normal day, he would probably be doing his best to cover for her with the rest of the pilots. She had just taken an important piece of military equipment and jumped home.

Home. That was an odd way of putting it.

Caprica wasn't anyone's home anymore, least of all hers. It hadn't been her home for two years.

It was still Lee's home, though, in a way. He had never found his place on Atlantia like she had on Galactica. He had told her that himself only a few days earlier.

Lee. It always came back to him, didn't it?

Perfect, by-the-rules Lee.

He was probably now devising some strategy to rescue the stranded crew down on Kobol. He would be flying flights to figure out how big a force of Cylons they had to fight and how they could do it without their ace-in-the-hole Cylon Raider. He would be working himself to death to make sure they had the right men and equipment to get the job done and done right. He would be at President Roslin's side advising and his own father's side pointing out the mistakes.

A peacekeeper to the end.

One thing he would not be doing is thinking of her. There would be no exhaustive search for the missing Starbuck. Lee hated her, and the Old Man had made it blatantly clear that the Fleet was more important than doing the right thing by her.

The memory of Lee's face when she had apologized stayed in her head. He hadn't looked glad that she had humbled herself for his benefit. He just looked tired.

She had made him tired. Perfect Lee who strove so hard to be a good CAG and a good pilot and a good son and a good friend. She had destroyed him slowly and surely since the day they had first met.

Lee had given up on her in that one sad, tired look. And if he didn't believe in her, then there sure as hell was no chance she believed that this imperfect Viper pilot who always beat the odds could accomplish the impossible one last time

She would show him though. If he didn't care whether she lived or died beyond the sheer fact that if she died the Fleet will have lost another pilot, then she would just show him how invaluable she was as that one pilot. He couldn't hate the pilot that brought hope back to a humanity that didn't even know they had lost it.

Groaning, she finally pushed the thoughts of Lee out of her head and forced herself to limp to her feet. Reassuring hands gripped her body and helped her up.

For one brief second, she thought that Lee had come for her after all.

But of course, that was ridiculous.

* * *

Lee stared past his gun at the terrified face of the XO. He couldn't believe he was doing this. He was pointing a loaded firearm at his father's best friend.

"Men, lay down your weapons." He hoped that his voice sounded commanding enough for them to listen. He didn't want this situation to get any more out of hand than it already had.

If Kara could only see him now.

He winced. Don't think about her. She's gone. She's never coming back.

He steeled his gaze on Tigh as the old man started to scream that this was mutiny and did he realize what he was doing.

"Yes, I do. But you can tell my father that I'm listening to my instincts, and my instincts tell me that we cannot sacrifice our democracy just because the President makes a bad decision."

In the back of his head, he desperately wanted to add a big 'I told you so' to the list of things he wanted Tigh to tell the Commander. His control was directly linked to the pilot who had just gone rogue. Without her here to do the unthinkable and fix the unfixable, it fell to Lee.

Within seconds, the President had the situation back in her control. The guns were lowered, and Lee felt the snap of handcuffs on his wrists. The severity of his actions suddenly hit him. He wasn't going to just get a slap on the wrist for this one. It was highly likely that he would be stripped of his wings, of his title as CAG, and of every last thing he used to identify himself.

And why was it he wanted to blame Kara for all of that?

Since that first day of Academy, his life had taken a series of turns he had never intended. He wanted to be the best pilot the Twelve Colonies had ever seen. His ultimate goal was to raise himself to the level of Commander, almost wishing that he could just sweep his father's job out from under his feet.

But his life hadn't happened like that. Kara had showed up in his life and stole away his brother, both emotionally at first and then physically. The guilt made him study even harder, but his dreams felt hollow now that his brother couldn't be a part of them.

Then she had to do the unthinkable and try to fix his relationship with his father. He had written William Adama off as an unfeeling, uncaring bastard who didn't even deserve one ounce of Lee's respect. And then Kara turned that opinion on its head and made him look at his father in a new light.

Kara had taught him what it was like to care for someone so much that you would do anything for them. She had taught him why you sometimes had to make the crazy move to be sure that things turned out all right.

The shuttle clicked into lock as they were delivered onto Galactica. The Marines began to lead him through the corridors but not in the direction he thought. "Aren't you taking me to the brig?"

"Not yet, Junior," one of the Marines said with a laugh. "Daddy wants to see you."

Lee ignored the snide remark and steeled himself for the hard times ahead.

So this is what Kara had been feeling for the past five years of her life. This hopelessness, knowing there was nothing you could do but pray that the pain would eventually end one day.

Oh gods. He wished she was here. She would know what to do to make this situation right. There had to be some good sarcastic remark that he could say to make everything just disappear.

But she's not here. She ran to a Cylon-infested planet where she most likely was killed on sight. She threw her life away carelessly.

And as much as he mourned for her, as much as it hurt him somewhere deep inside that she wouldn't be around to smile and laugh with him, to make sure he wasn't too serious, he knew that his life could finally return to normal without her there.

No repression. No suppression.

Just a life in a cell in the brig.

Frak. He missed her already.


	3. Kara's POV

Kara Thrace sat in the center seat of the front row in the briefing room. This was the first day of the rest of her life, and she was scared to death. It had taken all her strength to finally stand up to her mother and say that she was moving to Picon because the Academy had accepted her application to join Flight School. She was going to be a Viper pilot. Her mother's reaction was to immediately tell her that she wasn't good enough to be a Viper pilot.

Well, she would show her. She planned to work as hard as she could to graduate as the best pilot the Academy had ever seen. Old Wickman who ran the garage in her Caprican neighborhood already said she had a natural talent for understanding all things mechanical. She figured it wouldn't be so hard to transfer that into talent for flying something mechanical.

Her eyes darted around at the people who would be her classmates. They didn't look like they were anything to worry about. Half of them looked like they hadn't even experienced one hard day in their life.

She caught the eyes of a young boy at the back of the room. Was he staring at her? What the frak did he want? She hoped to the gods that he wasn't going to be like the last moron who had strolled over to her and asked if she was lost. She had wanted to deck him. Just because she didn't look like your typical Viper pilot didn't make her any less good.

A little voice in the back of her head wondered if maybe he wasn't like the others. He was staring at her with such open honesty. She could almost see the same struggle to be the best deep inside him. Maybe he wanted to be her friend. Maybe if she talked to him, she would forget about how scared she was for a few seconds.

She found herself telling that little voice to frak off and gave him her coldest glare before facing the front.

She had no time for friends.

* * *

Kara stepped outside her instructor's quarters and stood in the corridor. She couldn't believe they had done this to her. Her own damn team had requested that she be transferred.

What the frak had she done to them except push them to be their best?

Well, telling Nightwalker that if he wanted to get good at flying, he should get the stick out of his ass and use it to fly instead, that might have been pushing it. And taking out Bear's target last week when he obviously wasn't good enough to do it without her might have been overstepping her bounds.

But, damnit! She had been the only reason those rejects hadn't washed out yet.

And now she had to bounce from team to team until the instructors found someone who didn't mind working with the difficult nugget. Damn. The way things were going she was never going to get her call sign.

Her instructor had said that if she started focusing on improving her skills and not bucking for the stars which were not within her reach or abilities, she might actually stand a chance of being a great pilot one day. Like that was supposed to make this situation all better.

Bucking for the stars, huh? He thought she was just some kind of star bucker?

Wait a minute. She stopped in front of the simulation room door she was about to pass. Starbucker. Starbuck.

Now that was a good call sign.

She would have to suggest it to her instructor when she had a chance. He would find it funny since he had inadvertently come up with it.

But first, she was going to stop bucking for the stars and work on improving her skills.

Bursting into the simulation room, she started yelling, "All right, you worthless pieces of Cylon crap. My instructors tell me that you all are getting a little too big for your britches. They figured they'd send in good ole' Starbuck to straighten you out. See if maybe I can put your frak-ups in your place."

No one really responded to her taunting which was something new. Her old team couldn't keep their mouths shut when it came to firing back taunts. Maybe that was why they weren't that good of flyers. Too busy trying to keep up with her out of the air to be able to keep up with her in the air.

Great. Maybe the immunity this group had to her sarcasm and wit would push her a little harder.

Her eyes caught on the pretty boy trying to stay quietly to his little corner. An easy target if she had ever seen one. "Let me see. You're probably the worst of them, aren't you?"

He looked shocked that she had even noticed him.

She smirked. This was going to be all too easy. A girl of her talents shouldn't be wasted like this. "You are the person the instructors sent me in here to put in his place, aren't you, hotshot?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He definitely wasn't a hotshot. She had just said that to be ironic. This boy in front of her might have been something if she had saw him in a crowded bar, but in a Viper, she would be willing to bet that he was nothing special.

"You think that just because I'm not on your squad that I don't watch your sims?" She had to do her best not to laugh out loud. As if she really wasted time watching anyone else's results. "Your team is ragged. There's no flow. If there hadn't been some strange miracle in each one of your flights, you all would have been simulated dead."

She suddenly remembered hearing gossip of a pretty boy who had a knack for flying. Was this wallflower actually the one they were talking about? She shook her head. No way. He couldn't be. "And word is you're the ring leader. How someone who flies so sloppy can lead is beyond me."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

She looked around. No one was standing up for this guy. She was giving him a verbal lashing with no provocation at all, and yet none of his team was watching his back. It almost made her regret what she said next. Almost.

"I bet you think you're some sort of god. That you were destined to be in the sky and that no one can touch you when you're up there. Well, wake up, fly boy. You're not a god."

The look of devastation on his face made her feel suddenly guilty. She hadn't really meant any of the words that came out of her mouth. They were just her only way of infuriating these pilots enough so that they wouldn't ask her questions about why they hadn't been informed of their new team member. She needed to practice against different styles of pilots if she wanted to be the best.

But she couldn't tell this distressed pilot that nor could she apologize, so she found the first empty simulator and slid inside, away from their prying eyes.

Surprisingly, within the first three minutes of the simulation, the panel in front of her reported that only she and the boy whose spirit she had fraked with remained. She chanced a glance at the running tally of stats. Not only was he still active in the simulation but he was keeping up with her in kills. Interesting.

Her hand slipped slightly on the throttle, and her simulated Viper lost a little of its speed. This pretty boy pilot was making her tired. She had been pushing and pushing herself to show the whole team that they were way below her level. She wasn't used to this kind of strain, and now she could feel the fatigue creeping into her bones. But she figured she had enough to finish this last pilot off.

And that's when that one last pilot flipped his Viper straight over hers and began shooting with better accuracy than even the pros she had seen in her day.

Fine. She could play his game. She started rolling and firing, but it seemed like every target she locked had been shot by him only half a second earlier. The asshole had even started to take the targets obviously intended for her.

"Frak!" she screamed into the comm. "What the frak do you think you're doing, you fraking bastard!"

She waited for some snide remark to come flying back, but instead, he just took out a few more of her targets. She bit her lip and set her mind to show him that no one could just trample Kara Thrace like that.

The buzzer rang before she couldn't even get started on vengeance.

She knew that she should feel humiliated. She had taunted the pretty boy without really knowing the story behind him. He had served her ass back to her on a platter. She knew that everyone expected her to jump out of the cockpit and start throwing punches. Normally that was what she would do to teach someone a lesson.

The problem was she didn't feel humiliated.

She felt excited.

She had finally found someone to challenge her. Frak. She had found a pilot who was better than her.

As she got of the cockpit, she heard someone call him Apollo.

Yeah. She could handle that call sign, too.

Before she could go over and congratulate him, her instructor came barreling up. "Thrace."

"Yes, sir?" she said, hesitantly giving him a salute.

"Who told you to do the simulation with this team?"

She let herself have one last look at the only pilot who had put her in her place before turning back to the man in front of her. "Sir. I figured it was time to take your advice. Start practicing and stop bucking for the stars."

Her instructor shook his head with a laugh and motioned for her to start walking.

"Speaking of bucking for the stars, sir, I wanted to talk to you about my call sign."

* * *

Kara groaned as she calmly instructed a few of her students that if they didn't want to end up in the brig, they were going to have to learn how to control their liquor. These kids had promise if only they could get their priorities straight.

Oh gods. Had she actually just thought that?

She smiled at the waitress who was walking past before grabbing her bottle off the bar. Women who reduced themselves to wearing tight clothing in order to get a few extra bucks disgusted her. There was so much more they could be doing that didn't involve losing every ounce of self-respect they had.

Her eyes locked on the table where Zak was sitting. He wasn't alone anymore. His brother must have finally showed up. The jerk had kept them waiting long enough. So he was Zak's hero. She didn't care. No one kept Starbuck waiting.

She marched over to the table, catching the tail end of their conversation.

"-one administering tests to me at any point. She just helps me with my flight simulations."

"And boy do you need it," she said with a laugh.

Her jaw dropped as Zak's brother turned around to look at her.

No way. No fraking way.

Zak's brother was the pilot she had flown against in the simulator in those first few months of Academy. The only one who had ever given her a challenge. The one who was christened Apollo mostly because of her.

She had no clue that the mighty Apollo was an Adama. That explained a lot.

At the same time, it explained nothing at all. Because suddenly, everything she had heard about Lee Adama made no sense. She didn't have time to listen to gossip, but this one had been hard to avoid. The whole Academy had been buzzing since practically the day she started with talk of Battlestar Galactica Commander William Adama's oldest son who was supposedly riding on Daddy's coattails.

The man she had flown against definitely had the chops to be in the Viper program. He wasn't there for any reason but his own gods-given talent.

"Hi. I'm Kara," she said, taking a seat next to Zak.

"But you can call her god," Zak quipped smiling at her.

She rolled her eyes at his casual use of her typical first greeting to a new class of nuggets. "Or Starbuck. That's what I'm commonly referred to as."

"Lee," he said, still looking rather shell-shocked. Come to think of it, why was he looking so surprised? What was there for him to be surprised about?

"Most people call my brother, Apollo," Zak said with a smirk.

She found herself resenting the fact that he couldn't have told her that a few minutes earlier. At least then she would have had time to prepare.

In the back of her mind, she found herself wondering why this new development had thrown her off so much. What did it matter if Zak's brother was the one man she had considered her equal? What if he was the one guy she wished there had been more time to get to know during her Viper training? What if the pretty boy was the person she had always secretly wished would someday be her wingman when she got through with this stupid flight instructor assignment?

Zak squeezed her hand, pulling her out of her thoughts. She gave him a small smile and tried to focus on what he was saying.

Frak. This meeting was not going like she had planned.

* * *

Kara nervously watched the door. "Why isn't he here yet?"

"Why are you so concerned?" Zak asked, taking her hand in his.

"Because he's the person you look up to the most," she said, biting her lip. "If he tells us he thinks we're making a mistake, we have no chance of convincing your parents that this isn't completely insane."

Zak touched the side of her face lightly. "We're not insane."

She returned his reassuring smile before her eyes drifted the bar.

And there he stood. Lee Adama. Still as much of a pretty flyboy as ever.

"Lee!" she yelled, waving to get his attention.

He froze for a second before making a motion that she guessed was a return wave. She watched as he made his way over to their table. He wasn't acting like she was used to, keeping his eyes low to the ground and not even taking a second glance at the pretty girls who were so blatantly staring him down.

By the time he got to their table, though, the odd behavior had ended. "Again, I find myself answering a cryptic summons from my little brother."

His laugh was a welcome sound to her ears. Which is why she let down her guard and just basked in the familiarity of the situation. "He doesn't have a new girlfriend this time," she said with a laugh, grabbing Zak's hand in hers.

Oh gods. Why had she just said that? She thought she had decided she was going to ease into the news they had to tell Lee.

"No, I don't," Zak said. He tore his eyes away from hers in order to look at Lee. "I have a fiancée."

She choked on her drink at exactly the same moment Lee did. Why did Zak just have to blurt it out like that?

"What did you just say?"

"I asked Kara to marry me yesterday, and she said yes."

She watched as Lee nodded but didn't say a word. She didn't blame him. The news had been sort of sudden considering he hadn't known how much time Zak was spending with her. Granted, War College probably gave him little to no time to do anything other than study and fly. But he still could have tried to make a little time to figure out what his baby brother was doing with his life.

Maybe if Lee had made a little more time, Zak would be better at flying a Viper. As it stood now, there was no way he was going to pass the examinations at the end of the term.

She found herself wondering why Lee hadn't said anything else yet. He was still just sitting there, nodding and staring off into space. Didn't he think it was a good idea? Oh gods. She didn't know what she would do if he started going on about how odd a match it was. As if she hadn't realized how crazy it was for a girl who grew up in the slums of Caprica to be marrying the son of a Battlestar Commander.

"Congratulations."

She smiled. He had finally said it. That meant he was okay with the idea, didn't it?

"I think we need more ambrosia."

Before she could protest, Zak was already halfway to the bar. She was alone with Lee for the first time that she could remember. What the frak was she supposed to say now? Her mind zeroed in on his congratulations. Why had it sounded so fake?

She stared at him for a moment as he purposefully looked anywhere but up at her. "So, you didn't exactly sound thrilled."

"Well, you can only imagine."

Her worst fear was true. Lee didn't think she was good enough to be part of his family. She couldn't let him know how much that hurt. Time for her trademark sarcasm. That always kept the pain from showing. "Yeah. The baby boy of one of the greatest Viper pilots in the history of the Twelve Colonies marrying the trailer trash of Caprica. Sometimes even I don't believe it."

"No. It's not that. It's just… it seemed to me like you had more sense than that."

"I don't understand."

"Well. I assumed that after you finished your assignment as a flight instructor you would be going to War College to obtain an official placement out in the field."

Her mind drifted back to the distant memory of a time when she had dreamed of just that. Saying frak you to the flight instructor life and being a Viper pilot on some distant Battlestar with the man sitting in front of her as her wingman. Gods, she was glad she had never told anyone about that.

She realized that Lee was still talking. "-there's no way Zak's going to make it through Academy. So then, what is he going to do when his wife is stationed on a ship orbiting another planet?"

Something suddenly occurred to her. He had laid out all of the worries she had had in the past few weeks within the last minute. Things that had taken her way too long to come to grips with, and he had just verbalized them like that. "How much thought have you put into this, Lee?"

She saw him pale and start subtly searching the room, presumably for Zak. It gave her a good opportunity to deal with why she was being so defensive. It wasn't that she was afraid of Lee disapproving. No, with her illustrious past, she practically expected it.

What she hadn't expected was how hard it was to talk to him about her relationship with Zak and why she had agreed to marry him. She had thought her reasons were foolproof until this moment with Lee sitting across from her.

Why wasn't Zak back yet? She started scanning the bar for him just like Lee had. Why did Zak always disappear when she needed him most?

She glanced at Lee and the color drained from her face as she realized that he was staring at her. Breaking eye contact, she focused on the new addition to her left hand. This little band of silver meant so much to so many people. She had never understood it.

"How has instructing been going for you?"

His question gave her the relief she had been praying for. This was something that she would have no trouble talking about. "Oh gods. You wouldn't believe the nuggets they send my way. I don't remember ever being that green. The other day one of my students asked me when they were going to be shown how to do all the rolls and flips that the experienced pilots knew. I told him by the time he graduated from my class, he wouldn't need anyone to show him. He would be so good that he would figure it out himself."

She felt herself smiling. She might hate the flight instructor job when she saw those she graduated with moving on to bigger and better missions in the sky. But sometimes… sometimes, she really felt like she was making a difference, teaching these nuggets how to survive.

"There was this one time, Lee, where one of my nuggets told me that he thought he was just as good of a pilot as I was. I told him he hadn't even seen me fly, but the little bastard just kept at it. I guess it serves me right for letting this kids think I was just another one of them. Anyway, I shoved his sorry ass in a simulator and spent the next half hour decimating his poor little virtual Viper."

Zak returned to the table, and she gave him a small smile. "I was just telling Lee about the time I shoved you into a flight simulator and showed you how it was done."

* * *

Kara stared at the newly made mound of earth that held the man she loved deep inside. She still couldn't believe that Zak was gone. Just two weeks ago, he had come bursting into her room after his little surprise visit with his brother, declaring his never-ending love for her. He was so vibrant and alive.

She felt the tears before she realized they had begun to fall once more.

Frak. She hadn't wanted to cry while he was still there. He probably thought she didn't know he was standing over her, watching. Damnit. Why did he have to be so protective of her? Hadn't it been enough that William Adama had seen fit to offer her a job as a pilot on his Battlestar as soon as she was done going through officer training? Now his oldest son was making sure that she didn't completely self-destruct.

If only they knew what she had done.

"I know you're there, Lee."

She wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Are you going to be all right?"

She knew he meant that question as one friend looking out for another, but his words only served to anger her.She shrugged his touch off and took a step away. "The man I intended to marry just died, Lee. He died in a fire caused by the Viper I taught him to fly. No. I am definitely not going to be all right."

Gods. She wanted to tell him how it had all been her fault. How Zak had died because she passed him in Basic Flight when he had failed the test in every single way. How the night before she had told him she wasn't sure marriage was the right thing for them to be doing at this time.

But when she looked up at Lee's face and saw only understanding, she knew that she could never tell him.

He was the last piece of Zak she had. She couldn't take it if she lost that right now.

"I'm sorry, Lee. I didn't mean that."

He didn't say a word. Instead, he just took her hand in his and squeezed.

Together, they stared at the grave of the man they both loved more than any other.

* * *

Kara groaned and balled up the paper she had been writing on, flinging it across the bunkroom. It rolled around the floor next to the twenty or so other balled up mistakes. She was suddenly regretting being such a coward. It would be so much easier, and probably a lot less wasteful, if she just called him up and ask him how he was doing.

She knew exactly where he would be. With his mother back on Caprica.

Where else would one go to mourn the one year anniversary of your baby brother's death?

Sighing, she put the pen back down to a fresh piece of paper and tried again.

Dear Lee,

Could she actually use such a familiar greeting? She hadn't talked to him in almost a year. Frak it. She didn't care.

I just wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you on this hard day.

Hard day? What the frak was that?

I just wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you. Actually, I've thought about you a lot. Wondering how you were doing on Atlantia and whether you were still being the quiet kid in the corner who was phenomenally better than anyone else.

Okay. That didn't sound like she had been stalking him in Academy. Nope. Not at all.

We shouldn't have let things go like we did, Lee. I didn't know you before Zak, but I know you now. And I never thanked you for what you did for me that day in the cemetery when we buried

Buried? How heartless was that?

when we were mourning together. It meant a lot to me then. It still means a lot to me. Why didn't we fraking keep in touch?

Great. Now she was swearing at him.

We could have been each other's support system. You could have taught me how to fit in on a Battlestar. You know this is my first assignment off planet. I wasn't used to having so many pilots like me within reach. It would have been nice to know if you had gone through the same thing.

Okay. Enough rambling. Close it up.

I miss you, Lee. Love, Kara.

Love? Love? Where the frak had that come from?

And I miss you? She hadn't known Lee long enough to miss him.

But for some reason, she knew that she did. She did miss him.

"Lieutenant Thrace, you have a call," Dee's voice rang through the bunkroom over the private intercom. The phone on the wall next to the table she was writing on started to ring.

"Lieutenant Thrace speaking."

There was only dead air. If this was that damn annoying Raptor ECO, Karl something or another, annoying her, she was going to kill him.

"Hello? Is there anyone fraking there?"

Still no answer. And then she remembered that it had been Dee's voice informing her of the call and not the usual voice of Second Petty Officer Tanner.

"Damnit, Dee. If you even cut off another call for me, I'm going to personally march myself down to CIC and show you how it's done."

She heard the line cut off completely and set the receiver down. Her eyes fell on the finished letter in front of her. Groaning, she balled the paper up and chucked it across the room.

Time for attempt number twenty-two.

In the back of her mind, she knew that it wouldn't be successful. And neither would attempt twenty-three or twenty-four. She could write a million letters, and they would never be good enough to send.

"Lieutenant Thrace to Hangar Bay B."

Groaning, she threw the pad of paper and pen onto her bunk. The letter that would never get written would have to wait until later.

* * *

Kara was taken aback as Lee told her not to even start as their conversation shifted to the topic of his father. She stared at him through the bars of the cell she had been calling home all day. Gods. She had forgotten how infuriating Zak's older brother could be.

"How long are you doing to do this?" she hissed quietly, knowing that there were plenty of crewmen around somewhere who would know what she and the Commander's elder son were arguing about. Zak's death was not a topic that was openly discussed on Galactica, but it wasn't one that was kept hidden.

"I'm not doing anything," he hissed back.

"He lost his son, Lee."

She felt herself freeze at her casual use of his name. She had tried so hard for the past two years to keep him at a distance. To only refer to him as Captain Adama. To not admit to anyone, including herself, that he was more than that.

His words cut into her thoughts. "And who's responsible for that?"

She stared at his face as he looked at her. It was so hardened and cold. Not a thing like the pretty flyboy she had seen in Academy. Not a thing like the busy man who had taken time to meet his baby brother's new girlfriend. Not the man who had held her as her grief took over the day she buried her life along with the man she loved.

He had changed so much from the Lee she had known. The one she had grown to care for in all the smallest, inconspicuous ways, he was gone. Instead, there was this tough, cynical military pilot who didn't seem to understand one thing about human nature anymore.

"Same old Lee," she choked out. "You haven't changed either."

"Zak was my brother!" he screamed.

The words cut through her and made her realize she had been right. Lee was gone. "What was he to me? Nothing?"

"That's not what I meant. And you know it."

Suddenly she couldn't even bear to look at the man she had been dying to see for over two years. "You know what? You should go." She tightened her fists. "I'm getting the urge to hit another superior asshole."

He gave her a smile that cut to the bone and walked away without another word.

Gods. That had hurt.

* * *

"Hey."

She froze mid screw underneath the Viper that had been her personal punching bag for the last half hour and wheeled herself out from underneath the machine. It hadn't been in her head. He was really there. She found herself wondering if he was a ghost.

Then he reached out and grabbed her hand, helping her to her feet. The breath she had been holding left her lungs in a rush as she realized that she could finally dare to hope he had made it out of that horrible Cylon attack alive. "I thought you were dead," she spit out.

Nice, Thrace. Way to tell him that you were praying to the gods harder than you had ever prayed in order to ask that they keep you in their protection. Very smooth phrasing.

He smirked at her, though, obviously not offended by her blunt words. "Well I thought you were in hack."

"It's goo-" She cleared her throat as she felt tears of joy begin to choke up inside her. "It's good to be wrong."

At least that one sounded a lot more like what she was really feeling.

"Well, you should be used to it by now."

All right. Now she had a dilemma. She either wanted to pull him into a massive hug at the sight of that arrogant grin on his face or she wanted to deck him so that it would be wiped clean off. She decided neither option was plausible if she wanted to stay out of the brig. "Everyone had a skill."

Then they bridged into silence, their eyes bearing into each other. She suddenly felt naked. Why was he staring at her so intently? And why did it remind her of the way Zak used to look at her after they… well, the morning after.

And just like that he broke the intimacy of their contact by looking away. "So… so how… how go the repairs?"

Was the perfect Captain Adama actually struggling for words? Suddenly things were looking up. She hadn't had such a promising target for her taunts and jokes since Helo. Frak. Don't think about him now. He wasn't here anymore. Focus on the fact that Lee was here. "On track. Another hour and she'll be ready to launch."

And suddenly the first taunt popped into her head. Yeah. Things were looking up even though there had just been an armageddon tearing its way through humanity.

"So I guess you're the new CAG now."

* * *

Kara continued screaming at her asshole of an Executive Officer. Why the frak was he screwing with her when he knew the Old Man had practically ordered her not to leave Lee behind? Granted, she hadn't planned on it even before it had been an unofficial official order, but Tigh didn't know that.

Tigh's continued yelling that she could have gotten herself killed for no good reason suddenly made her want to cry. It wasn't like she didn't know the reality of the situation. She knew the day she signed up to be a Viper pilot that her life would exist from one close call to the next. One of these days the call wouldn't be a little too close and she would be gone.

But that wasn't why her emotions were starting to overwhelm her.

Her eyes locked onto Lee's where he stood in front of his Viper. There were noticeable rips and tears to his flight uniform that must have happened upon their hard impact with the hanger tube deck. He looked genuinely shell shocked for the first time since their whole race had been systematically exterminated by the toasters. She knew it wasn't because of his near-death experience either.

She would bet all her money on the fact that he was relieving her last confession in the hangar bay before they took off. He was wondering why she had found the courage to save him when she was too much of a coward to do what was right and save Zak.

Not even she could give him an answer to that.

All she had thought in those few moments up in the sky when she believed she was going to lose Lee was she couldn't let it happen again. She couldn't let the Old Man's only son be taken away. Another Adama was not going to die when she could save him.

She returned to yelling at Tigh. She didn't want to think about how close she had come to losing him.

And she didn't want to dwell on the reasons why losing Lee seemed like just about the worst thing that could have happened to her.

* * *

Kara stepped away from Cally and looked at her wounded bird. She had run it into the ground during the 200 or so launches she had done in the past five days. It would only get worst, too. She should just be grateful that she was still able to get the Mark II into the air. It hadn't seen this kind of beating since the first Cylon War.

And why the frak was she thinking about that at a time like this?

"Because you're in the middle of the second Cylon War, you idiot," she hissed at herself.

"Lieutenant Thrace." She turned her attention back to the demure Specialist who was one of the few people she respected enough to allow unlimited access to her Viper. "Um… I was just wondering… well… don't you think you might have been a little too hard on the Captain? He only wanted you to take a few pills."

"I'm going to let that little comment slide because I know you're just as tired and rundown as I am."

Cally's eyes went wide as she realized how out of place her comment had been. "I'm sorry."

"Not a problem. Because I'm so tired and I obviously don't know any better, I'm going to answer you." Kara gave her a wry smile. "I am hard on Captain Adama because he needs someone to be. He has lived his life too easily, riding on the fact that he's the son of a military commander."

She cringed inside. She couldn't believe she was taking up the excuse that all those ridiculous idiots in Academy had used whenever they had to explain why they felt it necessary to give Lee a hard time. But she couldn't go and tell Cally that she was hard on Lee because she knew he was going to make a damn fine CAG as soon as he accepted that the job was his.

Cally seemed to accept her lie of an answer and went off to use her thirty-three minutes wisely. Maybe the kid would actually be allowed a small nap this time.

Shrugging her flight suit off, Kara made the decision to work on her bird while those damn pills began to kick in. Soon she would be too jumpy to help the crew with their burden.

The burden of living.

That was the worst.

It was hard to keep going on this fraking thirty-three minute cycles.

That was really why she had been so hard on Lee. Sure, it had partially been because she knew he needed someone to shock him into doing his job right. Because men like Lee were cut out to lead. They just needed a little instruction from time to time. She had learned that in her time with the Old Man.

But the Old Man had never worried her as much as Lee did. Which brought her back to her real reasoning behind the screaming and yelling. If she kept him either angry at her words or laughing at her stupidity, then he wouldn't start to wonder if maybe it would all be easier just to give up and let the Cylons take him this cycle.

She was well aware that she was clinging to him. He was a thread to the innocent, naïve life she had led before losing Zak. He reminded her of those days in the Academy when she still believed she could raise herself up to the highest levels in the military.

And there was something in the way he smiled at her when he thought she wasn't looking.

Something that she couldn't put words to. All she knew was that little smile meant to go unnoticed was what kept her from surrendering to the temptation of letting a Cylon take one well-aimed shot at her.

* * *

Kara stared through the scope on her gun as the pandemonium her gunshot had caused slowly died down. At first, she had been angry at Lee for screwing up her one chance to get rid of the humanity's last real criminal. After swearing for a minute straight, she had calmed down and taken a look at the scene unfolding below her.

Lee was talking to the prisoners and Zarek. Whatever he was saying was keeping the situation calm. She looked at Cally, who lay bleeding on the cot in the cell. She was going to be okay. The kid was tough. Hell. It looked like she had bit some prisoner's ear off. Exaggerations of what had happened would make her the second toughest woman left in the Fleet.

She heard someone yelling into the ear piece about the fact that there still was no medical attention available. Kara shrugged it off. Like she had said, Cally was tough. She'd tough it out until someone got here.

The next person she focused on from her vantage point was Zarek, who was sitting crouched on the floor. He looked like he was crying. Pathetic. Lee shouldn't have saved him.

Why did Lee save him? She couldn't remember one reason why he might have sympathized with the known terrorist. Lee had always seemed the type of guy who ran the straight and narrow. Life was black and white. There was no such thing as grey.

But saving Tom Zarek was as grey as it got.

She trained her sight onto Lee even as the Marine team leader started screaming for her to get down to prison level to help contain the residents of the Astral Queen. He was pretty beaten up, and she could practically taste the mental fatigue written all over his face. Whatever Zarek had said to him, whatever had been done to him, it wasn't just going to go away when they got him off this ship.

Lee wasn't invincible. The wounds on his head where he must have been so brutally beaten practically screamed it at her. He could be hurt. He could be killed.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

Kara felt herself drop the gun and go running. They needed her down on the prison deck. Her sudden urge to follow orders had nothing to do with having to reassure herself that Lee was all right.

* * *

"FRAK!" Kara yelled as the Cylon Raider sputtered to a dead silence.

She had almost had it. Power was up and running. She had pitch. She had yaw. Why the frak couldn't she get roll?

"FRAK!" she screamed again.

She could not die this way. The great Starbuck did not crash land on some filthy planet that wasn't even good enough for cockroaches to live on. She went out in a blaze of glory. She didn't suffocate to death when all the oxygen in an enemy aircraft ran out because she couldn't get fraking roll.

She punched the guts of the Raider and felt a satisfying ripple run through the ship around her. "Yeah, that's right! I'm talking to you, you putrid piece of crap!"

She brought the power back up with her left heel. This ship was going to be her saving grace. It was going to be her ticket back home to Galactica. She would be going home, and it would be taking her there.

Then she would be able to fix the mess she had made before leaving. She would train those nuggets to the point of exhaustion, but when she was done they would be the best pilots the Old Man had ever seen. Then maybe he could realize how much she had changed since Zak died. Then maybe he could look past his anger and see that she was dying inside with guilt.

Adama hadn't held any anger against Lee who so obviously had accused him falsely of pushing Zak to his death. He would forgive her eventually. He had to.

She was holding on to that thought just as tightly as she was holding on to the belief that the Old Man had sent someone after her. There had to be Vipers in the air right now searching this planet for her. He might have insinuated that he was washing his hands of her, but he wouldn't actually leave her for dead. They had gone through too much together.

Don't forget Lee.

Lee already knew the mistakes you've made. You told him weeks ago, and he still chose to talk to you. He still chose to treat you like you were worthwhile. He wouldn't let his father be stubborn enough to let you go without at least attempting to save you.

Lee cared for you too much, Kara.

"What the frak are you saying?" she asked herself quietly as she fiddled with the stringy tendons that were near her right hand. "He cares for you? How do you know that he cares for you? You're nothing more than his brother's old girlfriend."

Her hand faltered as she realized what she had said. His brother's old girlfriend. Not the other way around. She identified Zak as being Lee's brother. She didn't think of Lee as just being Zak's brother. When had she started thinking of Zak only as an offshoot of Lee?

That was another thought for another day. Preferably one in which she wasn't marooned on a planet with only three of the four fundamentals of flying at her disposal.

"You will roll for me," she said, punching the Raider again.

* * *

Kara stared in confusion as Lee turned around in circles as he entered the bunkroom. She had seen a lot of jittery pilots in her days, but never Lee. It wasn't in his genetic makeup to be spooked. She watched as he let out a sigh of relief and sat down on his bunk. He looked exhausted in every sense of the term.

"Frak me! What happened to you?"

Lee jumped off the bed and made a motion to pull a gun from the holster around his belt that wasn't there.

Gods. He was tense. He couldn't even remember that he was in his dress blues and not his flight suit.

She pushed up off her bed and walked over to him. "It's just me. Relax. It's not like I'm a Cylon coming to get you."

"Not funny," Lee hissed as he sat down and tried to make his breathing return to normal.

"What's got you so wired? Because if I find out there is some source of caffeine still in this universe and I didn't know about it, shit is going to hit the fraking fan."

"No. It's not that. It's Ell-"

"What were you saying?"

She could see realization dawn on Lee's face as he realized he had gone too far. Whatever had scared him was also making him sloppy. "It's the XO's wife."

"She trying to kill you?"

"If you mean death by appealing to a man's sex-starved libido, then yes, she is definitely trying to kill me."

"No way! Ellen Tigh is hitting on you!"

"That's putting it lightly," Lee said as she slid off his coat, not even taking the time to hang it up. The piece of clothing ended up in a pile next to his bed as he stretched out on the bed again. "The woman practically molested me underneath the table while we were having dinner. With the President present, no less."

Kara's eyes widened as she imagined what Lee was referring to. Wow. The Old Man had been right. Ellen Tigh was pure evil. "Do you need me to protect you from her?"

"Frak off, Kara. She just made me jumpy. She didn't make me a coward that has to hide behind the local frak-up."

"Hey! I resent that." She walked over and sat down on Lee's bed. "I'm the galactic frak-up now. We're the only humans left in the universe."

"How could I forget?"

Kara sat in silence, staring down at Lee who was now hiding his eyes behind his hands. "Lee?"

"Please don't make fun of me anymore. I can't take it right now."

"I wasn't going to. I just wanted to know… well… did you like it?"

He threw his hands down to his sides and gave her a funny look. "What do you mean?"

Gods, she hated it when she got so curious about things she had no business knowing. "I mean, you must have been getting lonely, being all alone here in space. For one second, if you forgot that it was Tigh's wife, did you enjoy it?"

"No," he said resolutely. "Not for one second."

"Because it was Tigh's wife."

"No. Because it wasn't--" His eyes widened in horror at what he had been about to say.

"Wasn't?" she prompted.

"I am not talking about this anymore."

"Oh come on. You were about to tell me something. It's not good to let things sit on your chest."

He shook his head and she swore silently to herself. It was killing her not to know what he was going to say. Because she really wanted the words her wild imagination had cooked up to finish his sentence to be true.

She bit her lip and stared down at him. Come on, Lee. Do a girl a favor and not make this hard. Can't you just admit that you might have been saying that you didn't enjoy it because it wasn't me?

He sighed and sat up. "Because it was just about the worst scenario possible. Ellen Tigh. My father and President Roslin sitting a few feet away. Enjoying it wasn't even an option."

"Oh."

"Why? What did you think I was going to say?"

She had to think fast. "I thought that maybe you were about to admit that you actually had romantic feelings towards someone on this ship. We don't get enough of the tortured love gossip. It would have been nice."

"No such luck."

Yeah, tell me about it, she thought to herself.

* * *

Kara heard herself telling him that he would be just fine, but she knew they both were aware that she wasn't exactly believing herself. The darkness of the main projector room on Galactica should at least help mask some of the lie even if he could still hear it in her voice.

"Look," Apollo said, glaring at her, "you're worried that I'm not going to pull it out of the fire with some high-risk, retina-detaching move the way Starbuck would. Well, Kara, I'm sorry you're not suiting up. Because, believe me, everyone will feel so much better, me included, if you were riding along with us. But this isn't an ego trip. This is my job. And don't think for one moment that I will not get it done."

Gods. He really thought she had no faith in him. Well, she might as well seal the deal. "I hope so. Because we've got one shot. Don't frak it up by over thinking."

Seeing the look of devastation come across his face, she turned on heel and left him alone. When she reached the hall, she leaned herself up against the first out of the way nook and tried to catch her breath.

The memory of the first time she saw that look was haunting her. It was the day she had taken him on unofficially in the flight simulator at Academy, and he had wiped the floor with her. She had made him angry, and it pushed him to be a better pilot.

Thoughts of that day had been popping up at the most random times since she had first found out Lee was going to lead the squadron of Vipers into battle. She hadn't been sure of why until only moments before she asked Lee to stay after the briefing.

She smacked her fists against the wall in front of her face in frustration as she felt herself suddenly feel the desperate need to cry. It had been hard, but she had done what she came there to do. She had given him the motivation he would need to get the job done. Like always, the Fleet was in good hands.

The hands of a god to be precise.

* * *

He practically flew out of the cockpit to bask in the praise of his fellow pilots. He had pulled off an impossible plan that she wasn't even sure she could have done. He had pushed himself outside the box and saved all of humanity.

Not bad for one day's work.

Kara watched him pull Cally into a full hug. He must be pretty happy if he was so obviously willing to violate the fraternization policy that seemed to be the law by which he lived. She should know. She kept a close enough watch.

"Apollo, you magnificent bastard! That was one hell of a piece of flying, and I couldn't have done it better myself."

He feigned like he hadn't heard her over the chaos around. "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."

Okay. After what she put him through, he deserved to hear it twice. "I said I couldn't have done it better myself."

"Well, thank you," he said, toasting his drink at her.

"I had my doubts," she admitted. That was close enough to the truth. She didn't doubt his flying ability. She doubted her plan.

"So did I." She gave him a look of surprise. No way would the Lee she knew have let her lack of faith transfer into his own feelings of inadequacy. "I wasn't sure that crazy ass plan of yours could even possibly work."

Okay. Guess the feelings of her own inadequacy were mutual. She could live with that. She could live with anything if it meant he would go on smiling like that. For once it didn't seem like he had the weight of their world and the next on his shoulders.

"You deserve this," she said, holding a cigar out to him. She hoped he wouldn't notice it was the same brand that his father smoked. If he ever found out she had given him her welcome home present from flying that Cylon Raider back to the Fleet, she would never live it down.

He didn't notice.

She watched as he smoked and laughed with those around him. And it was at that moment, when she had forgotten about the Cylons, forgotten about the upcoming Quorum of Twelve, forgotten about the fact that her knee was still screwed up and she couldn't fly, and yes, even forgotten about Zak and the role he still played in her life… It was at that moment that she realized why everyone had doubted Lee.

Her presence in his life was holding him back. Having Starbuck as a friend was like shoving yourself as far away from the spotlight as you could.

He was better than her, and they both knew it. But that knowledge ended there. With the possible exception of the Old Man, no other person understood why Lee was the right choice for CAG and the right choice to go on this mission. No one understood how lucky they were that he had been on board Galactica when the Cylons chose to attack.

She stared at his blatant happiness for a moment before fading away into the background. Let him enjoy his day in the sun. And maybe it will last past the point when she got back into the sky.

Gods. She wanted that to last for him.

* * *

Lee's words rang through her ears as she made her way back to the shuttle that would take her to the Quorum on Cloud Nine. He had practically accused her of being some sort of dirty slob who wouldn't know how to clean herself up if it was a matter of life or death. He had meant it in joking, but it still kind of stung.

Trying to remember, she guessed he had never really seen her when she was out of the normal regulation clothing that military gave them. Though she had always thought she looked just fine when she wore that little zip-up green hoodie and left out the double tanks. She had caught many a male pilot on Galactica staring at how nice and clean the hoodie made her… eyes look.

Fine. If Lee wanted to know what he was missing, she would show him.

She waltzed over and picked up the first service phone she saw. "CIC," she heard Dee's familiar voice say.

"Dee, it's Starbuck. I need you to do me a favor. Word on the ship is there's a big celebration going down after the election, and it can't be stopped even if Zarek wins. I need a dress for it."

"A dress? But I thought dress blues were acceptable for you officers."

"They are. I just don't want to wear them."

"Does this have something to do with a certain Captain?"

Kara's heart froze. Gods. Was she that obvious? "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I saw you staring at Captain Holt the other day in the mess."

At first, she had no idea what Dee was talking about. But then she remembered the Captain in question having eaten a rather disgusting slop of whatever they were calling a meal that day. He had gotten it all over him, and yet no one was pointing it out. She couldn't help but stare. "Dee, I really don't want to talk about it."

"All right. I'll see what I can do."

Kara hung up the phone with a satisfying smack. Take that, Lee!

She let out a small laugh before it suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea why it was so important that she show Lee how wrong he was about her hygiene. When had she started carrying about her appearance in that way?

About the time the Twelve Colonies were decimated and a certain Captain got stranded on your ship, you self-deluded moron.

She really hated that nagging voice in her head that always told the truth.

* * *

Kara had thrown caution to the wind after downing her fourth glass of ambrosia and let Lee lead her onto the dance floor. If she couldn't do this now with the perfect excuse of blaming it on the alcohol in the morning, when could she do it?

Surprisingly, he didn't protest nor did he push her away as she rested her head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped themselves around her and held her in close.

And suddenly she was scared to death. She hadn't known it was possible to be this happy.

She hadn't felt like this. Not even with Zak.

Zak. Oh gods. She had forgotten. Oh gods. Oh gods. This was wrong. She had to pull away from Lee. She had to stop thinking about how happy she was. About how happy he made her. Happiness only led to heartache for a girl like her. Oh gods. She didn't want to kill Lee. Frak. How could she possibly save him from herself?

Before she could come up with a solution, Dr. Baltar stepped forward and asked to cut in. When she saw the relieved look on Lee's face, she realized that the whole moment between them must have been entirely in her head.

Good. It was easier that way.

But when Dr. Baltar pulled her close and she closed her eyes to the world, she couldn't lie to herself. She was wishing that Lee hadn't left.

But he had left her, hadn't he?

And she wasn't afraid to admit how much that hurt.

* * *

Gaius. Dr. Baltar. Dr. Gaius Baltar. Gaius. Gaius. Gaius.

How come every time she said his name Lee's image was still the one she saw in her head?

She had no idea why she was connecting the two men. They were nothing the same.

Lee. Gaius.

Nope. They didn't even sound the same.

There was no way to pawn it off. Her body had been in bed with one man while her mind was in bed with the other.

She passed one of her fellow pilots in the hall and gave him a mock salute with one hand while still holding her dress up with the other. There would be a lot of questions for her for the rest of the day. No one in the Fleet could turn down the opportunity to spread a little bit of good gossip.

And it wasn't everyday that the almighty Starbuck hustled down the halls in a half-worn dress looking like she had spent the whole night fraking the new Vice President of the Twelve Colonies.

Even after she had made her way to the bunkroom, she still couldn't figure out why she had said Lee's name. True, there had been a lot of ambrosia going around the night before, and she had spent a lot of time with Lee. But she wasn't stupid. The alcohol had worn off by the wee hours of the morning. And Lee had so callously left her in the hands of Baltar hours before.

Gods. She couldn't believe it. She had been thinking about Lee the whole time, as if it was he touching her in all the right places and not the new Vice-President. She had been closing her eyes and picturing the way her legs would wrap around his body, urging him closer. And she had been moaning his name in the hopes that the Lee in her mind would turn out to be the man in her… well… body.

Then, she had opened her eyes and realized that she was a fraking moron.

Shrugging out of the dress and throwing on her usual tanks and sweats, she slid into bed.

Sleep might help her avoid the problem for a little while.

And that was what she was best at. Avoidance.

Her eyes drifted over to Lee's bunk. The curtain was shut, denying her the information of whether or not he was inside.

She rolled her eyes and scolded herself silently. _And what if he was inside, Kara? What the frak would you do? Pull back the curtain and join him? Tell him the funny story about how you were fraking the Vice President and said his name? Admit that you were hurt when he just handed you over the night before on Cloud Nine? Just throw caution to the mind and assault his body with your tongue? Admit that you have been confused about your feelings for him since he walked into that bar on Picon all those years earlier?_

It was official, she decided as she slid her curtain closed to hide from the outside world. She was pitiful.

* * *

Pilot who couldn't keep her pants on?

Was that really all he thought of her? After all they had been through together?

Kara rubbed the bruise that was already forming on her jaw and hissed in pain. He sure hadn't forgotten how to hit.

Frak. She should have known after that little show of domination by Dr. Baltar in the pilot ready room that Lee would figure out what he was referring to. At least, he would figure out the parts already known by the notorious gossips of the Fleet, and those would probably only be the parts Dr. Baltar wished to divulge to others.

That other part. The important part. The part that had made her flee Gaius's room like there was a herd of Cylons coming for her. Lee would never, ever, ever know about that.

Kara toyed with the tools in front of her, unconsciously lining them up in order of their scarcity in the new world that couldn't reproduce tools. Maybe if she just told him what she had said when Gaius was… well, when she was… when they were…

"Frak. I can't even think it," she said, rolling her eyes and pushing the tools back into one big pile. "How the hell am I supposed to say it to him?"

She knew she had to do something, though. He was hurt. Gods know why, but he was hurt by what she had done. Like all her other screw-ups, she wasn't going to rest until she fixed this. She just hoped it wouldn't take two years like her last mistake which had managed to horribly divide a father and his son.

First off, things were not going to get better if she just sat here and lost herself in her thoughts. She needed to stop worrying about how bad of a mess she had gotten into and focus on the things that she would actually need to begin repairing the damage.

She hated to admit it but she would actually need Gaius Baltar back aboard Galactica if she wanted to be successful in her little repair mission. Lee probably wouldn't believe a word of what she was going to tell him if Baltar wasn't right there to admit his humiliation or to back up her story.

Wait. Would a proud man like the good doctor really readily admit his humiliation?

Kara flexed the muscles in her hand. Baltar would admit whatever the frak she wanted him to.

Because she had not forgotten how to punch either.

The words echoed through Kara's ear.

I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry.

How cowardly did they sound?

She couldn't have said that she frakked up. That she hadn't meant to take home the first warm body that showed interest. That the whole point of the night hadn't been for her to quench her sexual thirst with whomever was available.

But then, the truth had never really worked out for her when it came to Lee. She had been lying to him from practically the first moment they spoke. It was a part of who they were.

Why hadn't she been able to tell him the truth this one time?

That the only reason she went with Baltar was because she couldn't go with him.

If for one glimmer of a second it had been possible…

Needless to say, she wouldn't have gone with the Galactica's resident crazy.

Biting her lip, she stared at the empty space Lee had occupied seconds earlier. The Marines were still posted, keeping an eye on the Cylon Raider. For as much as her boy was being watched, you would have thought it was made out of solid gold. Or solid nicotine and ambrosia, seeing as how they were much more precious in these times than something silly as gold.

She grabbed the wrench that she had been using to tighten a few of the bolts and got back to work. She would have time to dwell on how much of a coward she was when it came to Lee later.

Turning to look at the door Lee had rushed out of one last time, she frowned as she saw Billy Keikeya waving at her. "President Roslin wishes to speak to you immediately if you're not otherwise engaged, Lieutenant Thrace."

She had no idea what the frak was going on, but if Billy was talking in such a formal manner, it must be big. Sighing she figured the repairs could wait. She would have to fix the Raider and her personal life at some other time.

"Well, I guess keeping our collective asses far, far away from the Cylons isn't that important," she yelled to Billy even though he was already out the door.

It seemed like everyone was running from her voice these days.

* * *

Kara tried with all her might to get her body to shift off the machine dead beneath her. Her arms cooperated, but her legs would have nothing to do with it. Letting the pain wash over her, she found her mind focusing on the little piece of metal lying between her fallen opponent and her own badly beaten body.

This was what had caused her life to turn to shambles in less than twenty-four hours.

It hadn't broken in the fall. She didn't know what she would have done if it had. She would have traveled millions of miles just to break the thing she had been sent to retrieve. Not even she could be that big of a screw-up.

Actually, there were quite a few people she loved who would argue that she could be that big of a screw-up.

There was something metallic in her mouth. It took her a second longer than normal to recognize the taste of her own blood. It shouldn't have taken her that long. She was off. Guess fighting a Cylon will do that, she thought.

Her neck could shift a few inches. That was a good sign.

The last time she had been this badly injured was--

No. Don't think about him.

She found herself asking why. Why couldn't she think about Lee? If not now as she lay incapacitated on top of a dead toaster knowing there was no way she could get out of this situation, then when?

She was tired of having to tell herself not to think about him. Not to think about how much he meant to her. Not to think about how much he stood for. How much she needed him and how much he didn't need her.

It hurt.

Pain. At least she could still feel the pain inside her.

Lee's face wouldn't leave her head. She kept imagining what he would be doing at this moment as she began to give up the invincible spirit she never thought she'd lose. On a normal day, he would probably be doing his best to cover for her with the rest of the pilots. She had just taken an important piece of military equipment and jumped home.

Home. That was an odd way of putting it.

Caprica wasn't anyone's home anymore, least of all hers. It hadn't been her home for two years.

It was still Lee's home, though, in a way. He had never found his place on Atlantia like she had on Galactica. He had told her that himself only a few days earlier.

Lee. It always came back to him, didn't it?

Perfect, by-the-rules Lee.

He was probably now devising some strategy to rescue the stranded crew down on Kobol. He would be flying flights to figure out how big a force of Cylons they had to fight and how they could do it without their ace-in-the-hole Cylon Raider. He would be working himself to death to make sure they had the right men and equipment to get the job done and done right. He would be at President Roslin's side advising and his own father's side pointing out the mistakes.

A peacekeeper to the end.

One thing he would not be doing is thinking of her. There would be no exhaustive search for the missing Starbuck. Lee hated her, and the Old Man had made it blatantly clear that the Fleet was more important than doing the right thing by her.

The memory of Lee's face when she had apologized stayed in her head. He hadn't looked glad that she had humbled herself for his benefit. He just looked tired.

She had made him tired. Perfect Lee who strove so hard to be a good CAG and a good pilot and a good son and a good friend. She had destroyed him slowly and surely since the day they had first met.

Lee had given up on her in that one sad, tired look. And if he didn't believe in her, then there sure as hell was no chance she believed that this imperfect Viper pilot who always beat the odds could accomplish the impossible one last time

She would show him though. If he didn't care whether she lived or died beyond the sheer fact that if she died the Fleet will have lost another pilot, then she would just show him how invaluable she was as that one pilot. He couldn't hate the pilot that brought hope back to a humanity that didn't even know they had lost it.

Groaning, she finally pushed the thoughts of Lee out of her head and forced herself to limp to her feet. Reassuring hands gripped her body and helped her up.

For one brief second, she thought that Lee had come for her after all.

But of course, that was ridiculous.


	4. Lee's POV

Lee Adama stared around the briefing room on the main campus of the Academy of the Twelve Colonies as everyone started arriving for their orientation. He could see a few familiar faces from his days of general schooling. Most of the people, including those he knew, looked scared, confused, intimated. He wasn't any of those things.

All he was to anyone right now was another Commander's son who had had no problem getting acceptance into the Viper training program because it would be a slight to Daddy if he got rejected.

Everyone would be wrong. The great William "Husker" Adama had helped him get his foot in the door, but that was all. Lee planned to make it to graduation with only his merits to credit for the success. He would fly his ass off until everyone saw that he was good enough to be in this program no matter who his father was. They might say it was genetic, the ease he felt in a cockpit, but he didn't care. At least genetics implied that he was utilizing his talent to its fullest.

He waved to Broc, his best friend since primary school, who was leaning against the back wall. "Why aren't you down there?" he asked, pointing to the front row where there was no one sitting.

"I'm a little too intimidated to just go and plop myself in front of where the instructors are going to be staring us down in a few minutes as an act of intimidation."

Lee nodded. The reason made sense, but he still couldn't help but feel that it only pointed out how out of place Broc was in this environment. He shouldn't be nervous because of the instructors' desire to intimidate. Everyone knew it was coming. You just stared at the wall and took it.

"So how does the competition size up?" Lee asked, scanning the room.

"There are your usual tough guys who keep making circles around the room, staring people down. And then there's the usual bookworms who are smart but mostly got in because they have parents in high places. No offense, Lee."

"None taken as long as you-"

"-understand that you're good enough to be here. I know. Am I your friend or not?"

Lee rolled his eyes. "So anyone else?"

Broc chuckled and pushed off the wall as he began to get noticeably excited at what he was about to say. "You're never going to believe this part. But, well, there was this little slip of a blonde girl walking around before. I thought that maybe she was lost. Someone beat me to the punch before I could get over there and ask her if she needed help. She gave them one cold look and marched herself up to the front row that no one seems to want to sit in and sat in the center."

Lee's eyes immediately fell on the girl Broc was talking about. He had been wrong about the front row being empty because, sure enough, a blonde girl was sitting there, looking very standoffish. She was fiddling with the chain her newly issued Nugget dog tag was hanging on.

Broc had continued talking, but Lee had stopped listening. Something about this girl intrigued him. Somehow he knew that she wasn't the little frail, lost thing that his best friend had taken her to be. There was a power in the way that she sat. And her eyes kept scanning everyone around her as if she was searching for weakness in all those present.

Unlike almost every other person in the briefing room, she looked like she knew what she was doing. She looked important. She looked like she belonged.

Lee continued to stare at her, trying to figure out if he should know who this mystery person was and why she might be so fraking important.

The staring had nothing to do with the fact that he found her pretty.

Nothing at all.

* * *

Lee slammed the cockpit hatch to his simulator open. He knew that everyone expected him to come vaulting out, gloating at his accomplishment.

They didn't know that he hadn't meant to do it.

He hadn't meant to beat her.

His face reddened as all the eyes in the room clearly focused on him.

It had been the normal weekly flight simulation they were all obligated to do as nuggets. There was some silly competition between the different halls in his dorm as to who could perform the best. He didn't care about that. How he flew only mattered to the instructors and even that was only when he could get out of the simulators and into the real thing.

That didn't stop the little blonde thing he had seen all over the campus since that day in the briefing room from barreling into the room while yelling about how the instructors had seen it fit that she be matched up with this bunch of frak-ups. Seems like they were getting a little too big-headed.

Lee couldn't even pretend to have no idea what she meant. His flight simulator partners had all gotten a little too cocky. The problem was they were usually only given team assignments, not assignments of individual skill. They weren't particularly good as a group, but with Lee on their team, they hadn't failed once.

They were getting cocky when they didn't have the chops to back it up. Secretly, he was glad that the instructors had thrown her in with them for this particular sim. This was an individual test in which you didn't have to watch out for anyone's back but your own. He knew from the rumors circulating that she wouldn't hesitate for one second if it came to the point where they got in the way of her own success. She would be ruthless.

Lee had been about to turn quietly and start his simulated pre-flight checklist, but when she kept talking, he froze.

"Let me see. You're probably the worst of them, aren't you?"

He was shocked to realize she was pointing at him. "Huh?"

"You are the person the instructors sent me in here to put in his place, aren't you, hotshot?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, secretly laughing at the fact that she had read the situation completely wrong. He was the hotshot who was going to soar because she was here to put down the rest of his team.

"You think that just because I'm not on your squad that I don't watch your sims? Your team is ragged. There's no flow. If there hadn't been some strange miracle in each one of your flights, you all would have been simulated dead. And word is you're the ring leader. How someone who flies so sloppy can lead is beyond me."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Lee hissed, suddenly wishing he had bothered to learn this rather annoying girl's name.

"I bet you think you're some sort of god. That you were destined to be in the sky and that no one can touch you when you're up there. Well, wake up, fly boy. You're not a god."

And then she disappeared into the flight simulator that had been assigned to Broc before he realized he couldn't hack it and dropped out of the Academy. For some reason, it seemed fitting that she should be riding in the spot of his best friend.

The only thing that had kept even a semblance of control to his flying in the beginning of the simulation was the fact that she hadn't made a dig about him being Daddy's little boy. She had left out all the usual taunts. He gave her a little leave-way because of that.

His teammates all dropped out of the simulation within minutes. It was just he and this girl fighting against one another to see who could accurately shoot the Cylon targets while flying as fast and as accurately as they could. She had kept up with him for the first hundred or so targets. But then he could practically taste her getting fatigued.

And suddenly he found himself wanting to rub in how wrong she was. He wanted to point out that she might be good, but she would never be the best with him in the cockpit.

He threw in all the hot dog moves that he had vowed to never use. He flipped his simulated Viper end to end and shot targets that were behind him as well as in front. He rolled and pitched so that she had to go on the defensive, and he took out a few of the targets which were obviously intended as easy shots for her guns. Throughout it all, he could hear her voice swearing over the comms that linked simulator to simulator.

He knew she wanted him to taunt her. To point out how wrong she had been.

He didn't need words for that. His actions would speak loud enough. And taunts would only serve to anger her into stepping up her game.

Then the buzzer rang. The simulation ended. Reality set in.

And he realized how much he had humiliated her. He had let his temper get the better of him and had taken down a pilot who hadn't needed a reality check.

She had been cocky and now he had made himself the center of attention.

Crap. So much for laying low until he got his wings.

One of his fellow students yelled out, "So, how does it feel to be a god, Apollo?"

He rolled his eyes. Apollo. God of the sun. Cute.

The name rang through people's cheers and chants. The only thing that kept him from grimacing was knowing, at least after a few minutes, no one would ever call him such a conceited name again.

* * *

Lee ran his hand through his still wet hair and, grabbing the key card that would let him back into the dorms, made his way out the door. He hoped his brother hadn't been waiting in too long in the rundown bar most of the nuggets training to be Viper pilots preferred.

When Zak had first called him to let him know that he was training to be a Viper pilot, Lee had been surprised. His brother had never really shown much promise at flying. A lot of times, Lee only thought he tried so that he could gain some of his father's attention. The great Commander only seemed to want to talk to them when they were doing particularly good things in the air.

Groaning, Lee broke out into a slight jog. He had warned his brother that he wasn't sure if he could make this little dinner. His first few weeks in War College were wearing him thin. It had gotten to the point where he really wasn't sure if he could eat and sleep let alone socialize with his brother.

But then he thought about how hard those first few months in the Academy had been on him. And he had had the raw talent to back up the challenge flying gave him. Zak didn't. His little brother had to be going nuts, trying to pull out decent scores on those simulators. A supportive brother would be there for him no matter how busy he was.

Lee smiled at the sight of the rundown bar that he had frequented so many nights when he was in the Academy. He hadn't had time to make it down here in months. Seeing the people laughing and joking as they indulged in a little ambrosia and triad made him understand his decision had been right. This place was distraction at its worst, and if he was going to make it through War College and the officer training that accompanied it, he would need to avoid it.

He had resigned himself to that. But then a call from his brother had brought him rushing down here.

He spotted Zak sitting at a table in the back and grinned. His kid brother loved being the center of attention as much as Lee hated it. He had chosen this table away from the action for his brother's sake.

"Hey," Lee said, sliding into a chair across from Zak.

"I wasn't sure you were going to make it," Zak said, holding up his watch. "Half an hour late?"

"My classes ran long, and then they threw me into a Viper flight. I had to take a shower after that as a favor to you nuggets."

"Well, at least you made it," Zak said. He leaned back and took a sip of ambrosia out of the glass in front of him. "I guess you're wondering why I asked you down here."

"I am." Lee said. He turned to signal at the bartender to send over two more drinks.

"Better make it three," Zak said.

"Someone joining us?"

"Yeah. She actually just went to check on a few of her pilots who weren't looking so well."

"First, she? And second, her pilots?"

"My new girlfriend. And she's an instructor for first years."

"You're dating a teacher?"

"Don't make it sound so dirty."

Lee leaned back in his chair as the tiny little waitress who had been staring at him since he walked in brought their drinks over. "Thank you."

"No problem," she said in a drawl that clearly identified her as a citizen of Geminon. "Should you need anything at all, I'll be right over there."

Lee nodded and watched her walk off.

"How do you do it, big brother?"

"Do what?" he said, turning his attention back to Zak.

"Get girls to lust after you without even looking at them."

"I'm not interested," he said, even though it was really not an explanation. "She's not my type."

"And what type would that be?"

Lee's mind immediately flew to the woman whose image had been occupying his dreams of late. "The type of woman who wouldn't take shit from men like that waitress is doing with those nuggets. But let's not get into that. Let's go back to the fact that you're probably breaking about fifty Academy rules by dating an instructor."

"We're not hiding our relationship, and her boss has made it clear that she's not to be the one administering tests to me at any point. She just helps me with my flight simulations."

"And boy do you need it."

The voice made Lee freeze. Frak. If that was who he thought it was, then he was in trouble.

Hoping to the gods that he hadn't recognized the voice correctly, he turned to look at his brother's new girlfriend and flight instructor.

Yeah. There she was. The woman he had seen on and off as they worked their way through the Academy training program. The woman he had lost control around and ground into the dust that day in the simulators. The little blond thing that was so many more things than she seemed.

But worst off, she was the woman who he had been having rather vivid R-rated fantasies about every single time he closed his eyes.

Frak didn't even begin to cover it.

* * *

Lee walked into the bar on Picon after pausing slightly at the sense of deja vu. This whole situation was familiar. About eight months earlier, he had strolled in happy to see his little brother and left confused as to why he wasn't happy that Zak had found someone to love.

And now he was walking back in to meet the two people that had confused him so badly before.

He made a detour at the bar. This time he wouldn't be stupid enough to wait to order the alcohol until after he had found them. In fact, if he could get a few drinks in him before they even noticed he was here, all the better.

"Lee!"

Maybe not. He grabbed the drink from the bartender and threw a few cubits down.

The sound of her voice calling out his name still felt new and strange. They had gone through Academy together without even uttering each other's call signs, let alone their actual real names. And now she just tossed it around like they had known each other since they were young.

All the same, he didn't hesitate to give her a small wave of recognition before dropping his gaze as he pushed his way through the crowd to their table. "Again, I find myself answering a cryptic summons from my little brother," he said with a laugh as he took a seat.

"He doesn't have a new girlfriend this time," Kara said with a laugh, grabbing Zak's hand in hers.

Kara. When had he let himself think of her on such a personal level? Why couldn't she just be that little blonde thing? Or the girl he had beat in simulations? Why did she have to be Kara?

"No, I don't," Zak said. He tore his eyes away from hers in order to look at Lee. "I have a fiancée."

Lee knew that choking on his drink had not been the reaction they wanted, but it was what happened. "What did you just say?"

"I asked Kara to marry me yesterday, and she said yes."

Lee nodded his head slowly, trying to process this new information. He hadn't even known that his little brother was getting serious with his new girlfriend. He had been too busy trying to find a way to get through War College so that he could finally get his placement on some Battlestar far, far away from this very problem. Plus, he still had the goal in his head that he would be a better man than his father on all levels, and then finally, maybe the pressure would let up.

Not that he hadn't taken time to learn about this new girl in his brother's life. He found out that she was the daughter of a rather obscure military trainer mother and one of the best jazz musicians on Caprica. He found out that she had practically breezed through all the flying courses in Academy but struggled through the basic arts. He found out that she was a frequent visitor to the brig and had a problem with too much ambrosia when combined with men that were, frankly, fraking idiots.

All that research had been for his brother's own sake, of course. It had nothing to do with his own curiosity.

And now his brother was making this little relationship permanent. Something that no self-respecting Viper pilot would do. They knew that their lives were too hectic to let themselves make such attachments. Which, come to think of it, begged the question of why an Academy-trained Flight Instructor would want to put herself in that position, too.

Gods, this was all too much.

"Congratulations," he finally spit out after realizing they had been patiently staring at him, waiting for a reaction.

Zak rolled his eyes. "I think we need more ambrosia."

Before Lee could protest, his brother was gone. Now it was only Kara and Lee at the table.

"So, you didn't exactly sound thrilled," she commented after a moment of awkward silence.

"Well, you can only imagine," he blurted out. Oh gods. That did not come out right.

"Yeah. The baby boy of one of the greatest Viper pilots in the history of the Twelve Colonies marrying the trailer trash of Caprica. Sometimes even I don't believe it."

He stared at her in confusion. Was that really what she thought of herself? "No. It's not that. It's just… it seemed to me like you had more sense than that."

"I don't understand."

"Well. I assumed that after you finished your assignment as a flight instructor you would be going to War College to obtain an official placement out in the field. You and I both know that no matter how good of a teacher you are, there's no way Zak's going to make it through Academy. So then, what is he going to do when his wife is stationed on a ship orbiting another planet?"

"How much thought have you put into this, Lee?"

Oh frak. He had said too much. Lee looked behind him, frantically wondering when Zak was going to come back. He couldn't even see his little brother through the crowd. Defeated, he turned back to look at Kara.

It surprised him to see her also scanning the room, presumably for Zak. Her eyes locked on his for a few seconds before she quickly shifted to stare down at her hands. The ring on her left hand caught the light and shined brightly. It seemed like she had already gotten in the nervous habit of fidgeting with it.

Nervous habit? What the frak did she have to be nervous about?

Unlike him, it seemed like her life was just going splendidly these days. "How has instructing been going for you?" he asked, trying to bring up a topic that was much more safe than if they continued on with their discussion of the now not-so-secret engagement.

"Oh gods. You wouldn't believe the nuggets they send my way…"

He found himself staring at her sudden burst of excitement. She seemed to really love her job even though it was clearly a waste of some of the best talent the Twelve Colonies had. Her eyes had lit up as she started telling story after story about the new blood trying to make their way through Academy without washing out.

Her words slowly faded out as all of his senses suddenly directed themselves onto the glowing sight sitting in front of him. She looked a lot less jaded and soft when she let down her defenses, which obviously wasn't often from what he heard. He could see what had attracted his brother to her in the first place.

A voice in the back of his head nagged him to admit that he didn't have to invoke his brother to understand what would attract a man to this woman sitting before him. He would only have to consult his own memory of seeing her that first day in the briefing room.

She had seemed stubborn, not willing to budge for anyone. She had seemed smarter than most of the other people in the room without even having to say a word. And she had been the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

He stared at her from across the table as she still continued talking about her students.

She still was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Frak. His whole body froze as it suddenly dawned on him what was going on.

When had he fallen in love with his brother's girlfriend?

He watched as Kara paused in her story to give Zak a smile as he returned to their table with a round of drinks.

Scratch that. Make that in love with his brother's fiancée.

* * *

Lee was in the middle of the daily jog he had taken to going on in order to get used to the schematics of Battlestar Atlantia when his eyes locked on to a face he never thought he'd see on this ship.

"What the frak are you doing here, Zak?"

"I caught a shuttle that was leaving Picon early this morning. There were a few things I wanted to ask you before you come to my graduation in a few weeks. I didn't want to go through all that pomp and circumstance with Dad and telling him about our engagement without talking to you first."

Lee wiped the sweat off his face. "I told you before Zak. Dad won't care about you and Kara. If it doesn't hurt your chances of being a Viper pilot, he won't care."

"This isn't really about Dad, Lee. It's about you."

"Me?" Lee said, scrunching up his face in confusion. "Your pressing questions have to do with me?"

Zak rubbed his face and gave a sigh. "Listen, Lee. There's no way I can ask you this easily, so I'm just going to do it. What do you feel for Kara?"

"She's a good girl. I think she's going to make you happy, Zak." He let out a tense laugh. "But you didn't have to fly all the way to Atlantia for me to tell you that. I thought you already knew how much respect I have for your future wife."

"Respect? Is that all you have for her?"

"Admiration. Appreciation. Do you want me to go on?'

"How about love, Lee? Do you love her?"

Lee felt his heart freeze. The way his brother was looking at him… he knew. Oh gods. He didn't know how, but Zak knew that he was in love with Kara. "I love the way she makes you happy," he lied.

"Right. But do you love her?"

There was no way around this. He had never in his life told an outright lie to his little brother. But he had no other choice.

"No. Of course I don't. Kara and I had never even spoken to one another before you introduced her to me. I have to admit I knew who she was. Her actions at Academy were legendary. The girl spent more time in the brig than in the cockpit." Lee gave his brother his best fake smile. "But as for me loving her, no. I don't."

Zak nodded, and Lee could tell immediately that his brother hadn't believed a word he said. "Kara and I are going to get married, Lee. We are. I just wanted to make sure you knew that."

"I do," Lee said, understanding the subtext of his brother's words. He might love Kara, but Zak was the one whom she loved back.

That realization rang through his head as he watched his little brother turn his back to him and walk away.

* * *

Lee watched as the strongest woman he had ever known beside his mother broke down. She had held it together while everyone was gathered around the closed casket as it was lowered into the ground accompanied by the normal twelve-gun salute.

Now that only he and she stood in front of the covered grave, she had let herself go. Frak. She probably didn't even know he was still here, watching her.

He didn't know what to say to make her feel better.

"I know you're there, Lee," she whispered, pushing the tears from her eyes and glancing over at him.

"Are you going to be all right?" he asked, stepping forward to place a hand on her shoulder. Gods. Could he be any more impersonal?

She shrugged away from his touch and took a step towards the grave. "The man I intended to marry just died, Lee. He died in a fire caused by the Viper I taught him to fly. No. I am definitely not going to be all right."

He didn't know what to say to that. In fact, he didn't know what to say to most of what she had said to him since he received the news that his brother had been killed while flying.

He wanted to tell her that things were going to be all right. That even if she felt her life was over now that Zak was gone, she would manage to rebuild somehow. She could still fly better than any other pilot out there. She had that to fall back on.

But the words wouldn't leave his mouth. They would only sound hollow, anyway.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell."

And now she was apologizing. His heart ached for the destroyed woman standing in front of him.

Because the words still weren't right for him to say, he simply stepped forward and took her hand in his. At least he could be a comfort for her with a while. As much as it pained him to be so close to her and still be holding so much back, he wasn't about to step away.

Kara had unknowingly reached out to him for help even if she would forever deny it. He wasn't going to back down just because of a little emotional pain. He had been raised better than that.

Maybe someday he'll find a way to tell her that she was going to survive this. Maybe someday he could show her that life would go on.

But for now, he was content to just show her that he was here for her to lean on. He was going to show her that at the very least she could go on for the next few minutes.

After that, he wasn't sure what came next.

* * *

Lee paced up and down the length of the long hall in the house on Caprica that his mother had always been so proud of. He had just spent the entirety of dinner listening to his mother go on and on about how well Kara was doing. She had breezed right through officer's training and then quickly accepted his father's offer of a place on Galactica.

That's where she was now.

Caroline Adama had mentioned that Kara hadn't even been thrown into the brig once in the past six months. And that was the point where Lee really starting worrying. For the past two years, the most common occurrence in all Twelve Colonies was hearing the words 'Starbuck' and 'brig' together in the same sentence.

If she was avoiding trouble, then there still must be some sort of sadness or anger festered up inside her. He desperately wanted to know why she hadn't let it go yet. It had been a year.

Suddenly determined, he picked up the phone and dialed in the security number and connection location he had known since childhood.

"Caprica private residence, this is Galactica receiving your transmission."

Lee startled for a second. For as long as he could remember, the voice that answered the transmissions had been an elderly man too old to advance farther than this position. This time the voice belonged to someone a lot younger and a lot more unsure of what they were doing. Not to mention that this someone was definitely a woman.

Clearing his throat, he pushed that thought to the side. "Galactica, I'm requesting you connect me with Lieutenant Kara Thrace if she's available."

"Understood."

Lee waited for the voice to click off. When it didn't, he asked, "Is there a problem, Galactica?"

"No. I just…" The young girl's voice paused. "Well, isn't this the number to the Commander's old residence on Caprica?"

"Yes. It is."

"And you don't want to talk to the Old Man? Oh gods. I didn't not just call him that on the comms. I am so going to get fraking fired. Oh gods. I just said frak. Oh. I said it again."

Lee let out a chuckle. "Is this your first day?"

"Yes, sir. Wait. Are you a sir? I don't even know."

"What's your name?"

"Petty Officer Dualla, sir. But everyone calls me Dee."

"Well, Dee, I guess then I would be a sir to you. I'm Lieutenant Lee Adama which is why I'm calling from the Commander's old residence. I don't want to talk to my father right now. I'd like you to connect me to Starbuck." Lee paused for a moment. "And don't be worried about your job. I'm sure you're doing just fine. In fact, the bumbling is kind of charming."

"Thank you, sir. Connecting."

Her voice cut off this time, and Lee let out a little chuckle. This girl was definitely going to have some hard work cut out for her if she was going to stay on in her post as communications officer.

"Lieutenant Thrace speaking."

And there it was. The voice he hadn't heard almost a year.

"Hello? Is there anyone fraking there?"

He found that he couldn't get himself say anything. Hearing her voice was drumming up things he had spent so much time trying to forget.

"Damnit, Dee. If you even cut off another call for me, I'm going to personally march myself down to CIC and show you how it's done."

Lee wasn't even hearing her words anymore as he set down the receiver.

Calling her had been a stupid, unthinking move on his part. He had no idea what to say to her. 'Sorry that a year ago the man you loved died' just wasn't going to cut it. Neither was 'I'm worried because I hear you've been on your best behavior lately'.

And he definitely wasn't about to admit to her what the mere sound of her voice did to his heart. It was currently beating at a hundred miles before hour. He had really thought he had gotten over those feelings when they parted ways after Zak's funeral. But the guilt of loving his brother's girl was still there.

He stared at the phone. The guilt was there. And obviously, so was the love itself.

He heard his mother enter the kitchen and yell for him to help her with the groceries.

Frak. She better not start talking about the wonder that was Kara again.

* * *

Lee leaned against the bars of the brig and watched the little blonde woman who was driving her body to the extreme as she did push up after push up. He had no idea how someone who had found such a fitting niche to live her life in could look so sad. He knew if she wasn't such a brave person to the core, she would probably allow those tears that were welling in her eyes to fall.

Suddenly, he wanted her to know that he was there watching her. Maybe she could find comfort in his presence like she had done that day in the cemetery.

"This seems familiar." That had come out a lot smugger than he had intended.

She looked up at him as if he was the last thing she had ever imagined would be before her eyes. Hadn't someone told her that he had been ordered to attend the decommissioning?

"Captain Adama, sir," she said, finally standing up. The cocky grin he had always connected with her replaced the held-back tears. "Sorry I wasn't there to greet you with the rest of the squadron. Did they kiss your ass to your satisfaction?"

As much as he would have loved to tell her how good it was to hear her sarcasm, he chose to ignore it. "So what's the charge this time?"

She thought it over a moment before saying "Striking a superior asshole."

He felt a grin spread across his face even though he had been trying his best to stay serious. "I bet you've been waiting all day to say that one."

"Most of the afternoon." Smiling, she walked up to the bars and asked him, "So how long has it been?"

"Two years," he said shortly, knowing that this was just steering them to a topic he really didn't want to get into right now. He just wanted to bask in the fact that she was acting the way he could remember her from when Zak was still around.

"Two years? We must be getting old. Seems like the funeral-" Her eyes darted up to stare into his. "-was just a couple of months ago."

The look in her eyes made him pause. Was she talking about the fact that she had to bury the man she died or was she talking about what had happened between them after everyone else had gone?

As she continued talking, he suddenly realized what superior asshole she must have been referring to. He did his best to cover his shock from the image of her striking his father's best friend as it popped into his head.

And for the first time in two years, he felt relieved. The tension he had always felt around her suddenly faded away. For the first time, he realized that the distance between them had helped him smother those feelings he should never have even started feeling.

He would be gone off Galactica in a few days. Maybe the continued distance would get rid of his love for her completely.

Now what was she talking about?

Frak. Why had she brought up his father, the only other topic he didn't want to talk about?

As the tone between them started to become a little hostile, he found himself wondering why she always had to push him until he didn't know which end was up. Couldn't things just be simple with her?

Well, no matter. Things would get better when he was off this hunk of junk and there were miles of space between them.

* * *

Lee made his way across the crowded hangar bay. Since the second the shuttle of Secretary Roslin- make that President Roslin- had docked on Galactica, all he could think about was finding her. Somehow, his training in high stress military situations had given him a second chance. He was going to fix whatever had gone wrong.

He saw her working under her Viper just like he had thought she would be. She had grease smudges all over her face. For some reason he thought that was probably the best thing he had seen since… well… since way too long.

Yeah. If it was the last thing he did, he would make whatever was broken inside of her right again.

After all, he had already proven it could happen before. He would just have to not get scared and run like he had the first time.

Lee sat in the Viper that had been so brutally pinned to the launch tube wall. He knew that Galactica's crew would have the tube sealed off and would be making their way towards the wrecked Vipers within minutes. He wished he didn't have to wait for them to let him out before talking to Kara.

He had no fraking clue why she hadn't left him behind. It was what they had both been trained to do in a time of crisis. Each pilot's life was worth the same as the next, no matter who it is. No matter whose son they are. She could have easily taken the one imminent casualty that would only slightly hurt the Fleet and multiplied it into two casualties which would devastate the little bit of progress they had made so far.

Her words as she screamed at him to shut up and hold still echoed through his head. He had ordered her to leave him behind, but she hadn't listened. Seeing as he was a Captain and she was a Lieutenant, he had the right to ground her for disobeying a direct order. But somehow he felt the fact that she had saved his life would make that a little too hard on both of them.

But still his mind kept going back to why she couldn't leave him behind. It insinuated that she thought he was too important to sacrifice.

He wasn't. When it came down to it, he wasn't even a part of Galactica. The fact that he was the CAG meant nothing. Any one of the other Lieutenants on board could do just as good of a job. So why had she risked her life, the one that was definitely not worthy of sacrifice, to keep him alive?

Why the frak did she do it?

As his cockpit suddenly flew open and he was surrounded by crewmen, he resolved himself to ask her the second he was free.

But then chaos erupted as he heard the shouts of the XO echoing through the tube. He was berating Starbuck for doing such a stupid move, and she was shouting back at him that if he cared for William Adama as much as everyone thought, he wouldn't be asking her that.

So, she had made the choice because of his father?

Her eyes locked with his for a second before she turned back to yelling at Colonel Tigh. The emotion he saw in them made his whole body stiffen.

She looked like she was about to cry. Which made him think that maybe it had something to do with Zak. That was the only thing that seemed to make her cry these days.

Because if it wasn't about Zak, then there was a lot of unspoken confliction stirring up between them that he couldn't just attribute to the stress of having his brother's memory hanging over them. He suddenly remembered the confliction he had felt all those years where he had tried to come to terms with Zak's death and with his feelings of guilt because he had loved the woman he couldn't dare to dream loved him back.

She had killed him. She had passed him when he should have failed. His death was no one's fault but her own.

Those words didn't seem even a little bit right. She might want to take all the guilt on her own shoulders, but that's not where it belonged.

He watched as she stomped away from Tigh. Asking her why he was so important would have to wait.

Maybe he could ask her on the day that the Cylons were finally beaten. Then they might be able to face up to the fact that they were both important to one another for reasons that made no sense.

But frak, didn't those reasons feel right?

* * *

Lee walked away from the Viper, empty pill canister in hand, laughing to himself. She had always been cranky when she was tired.

He paused as he realized he had no real right to know that. It had been something Zak had mentioned in passing one of the few times he had talked to him during the time his brother had dated Kara. She had been on the warpath because her instructing schedule hadn't given her more than two hours sleep at a time. Zak had told him about it, and somehow Lee had remembered.

One of these days, he would have to stop kidding himself. These little details about Kara weren't something he just remembered out of the blue. He had committed them to memory. He had held on tight to every little detail he could get about Kara Thrace from the moment he discovered her as a little blonde thing in the middle of a briefing room of nuggets.

She was fascinating.

He turned back to sneak one last glance at her. She had her back to him, already in a rather intense discussion with the young Specialist named Cally. They were presumably debating about how her Viper was running and whether its shortcomings were the pilot or the crew's fault. Without warning, Kara turned and smiled at him, giving a mock salute.

He saluted her back.

He felt a voice in his head nagging him as to why he let her get away with the things she did to him. She made his life on Galactica as the CAG twice as hard as it should be. Yes, he didn't know any of the pilots. Yes, he still wasn't sure he was qualified to lead them. And yes, he felt like an idiot because he was still getting lost in the winding corridors of the Battlestar.

But shouldn't the one person he knew be helping to ease the burden? She was his friend, wasn't she?

Yet she caused him so much grief. He just stepped back and let her. She was right when she said he was trying to be her friend and not her CAG. He should be sticking with the basics. He didn't know these pilots. He had no obligation to make their lives easy.

But it was different with Kara, isn't it?

You know her, don't you? And you consider her your friend even if neither of you has ever said it out loud? And you want her to be more, don't you? That's why you let her walk all over you.

"No," he hissed as he started stalking out of the hangar bay. "No. You put all that behind you when Zak died. She's just a friend. A friend and one of your pilots."

He had always been a bad liar.

* * *

Lee was screaming orders at the Marines that were filling down onto the prison deck. He couldn't understand why Galactica hadn't gotten a medical team here yet. The young Specialist who had been so brave and fought her captor so hard was in needless pain.

He ripped an ear piece out of the nearest Marine's ear. "Galactica! Where the frak is the med team?"

"They are en route," came back the stiff answer.

Lee groaned and threw the headset down. He really wished that Dee was behind the communications panel and not here on the Astral Queen. He still had no idea why she was here. She had no real purpose.

Turning back, he stopped to look at Dee, who was holding Cally's hand tightly in hers. "How are you…" His voice cut off as he saw the young girl wince in pain.

"She's holding up, Captain," Dee said with a smile. "She's from Galactica."

Lee nodded. That was the sentiment he had heard from a lot of his pilots. They thought they were a tougher breed than the other Battlestars' enlisted and non-enlisted crew. From what he had seen, everything they thought was true. The people he was surrounded with were as tough as they came.

Speaking of tough, he wondered where Kara was. The shot that had been intended for Zarek would have been right on the mark if Lee hadn't pushed him out of the way. He didn't know anyone else who had that kind of accuracy except for her.

So she was on the Astral Queen. Why hadn't she come down to the deck level to help him keep things in control? Not that he really expected her too. She had already proven in their short time together that she didn't look out for anyone but herself. One second she was in a good mood and doing her best to make him laugh. The next she was screaming at him to shut up and do his job.

"Damnit, Lee," he muttered to himself as he started walking the length of the prison deck corridor again in order to make sure that everything was running smoothly. "You know why she isn't down here. You just saved the life of the fraking terrorist who tore a divide in Sagittarian society. She's disgusted."

Lee still wasn't sure why he had done it. All he knew was it felt like the right thing to do. He hadn't followed his instincts like that in a long, long time. Usually when he did, it never ended well. So he had learned to ignore his instincts and follow his head which told him what was expected of him, what was the right thing to do.

It seemed his opinion on his instincts was right. He had saved Zarek and lost Kara in the process.

It never ended well.

"Lee!" He turned as he heard her scream and barely had time to duck as she launched her fist at his face. "What the frak did you think you were doing? I had my shot!"

"Your shot wasn't needed. I had the situation under control."

She flipped the ridiculous helmet the Marines must have forced her to wear off her head and glared at him. "Do you call getting the best Specialist we have shot in the side having the situation under control?

And suddenly he was glad to be arguing with her. It meant he hadn't lost her after all.

* * *

Lee held the phone out to his father and listened in horror as the search for Kara was terminated. President Roslin's words rang through his head. He respected this woman. He trusted this woman. He believed this woman.

And yet he didn't want to give up looking for their missing pilot.

He couldn't give up on her. And he couldn't understand why his father would either. Grasping on to the one thing he had managed to understand from the President's tirade, he turned to his father, "I want you to know. I think she's wrong. I think we have come to terms with what happened to Zak."

"I haven't."

His father's voice was cold and extremely straightforward like always. Of course his father hadn't come to terms with it, he scolded himself. Only weeks ago neither one of them had had any clue about Kara's part in Zak's death and Lee was still blaming his father entirely for the accident.

He turned to leave, knowing somewhere deep inside him that his father didn't really want to stop searching for Kara. If he was honest with himself, they both loved Kara more than they loved one another. She was their pillar of strength.

The thought of his father loving a woman he had only known for a few years over the son he had known from birth made him pause and turn back. His father was looking at him expectantly. "I need to know something. Why did you do this? Why did we do this? Is it for Kara? For Zak? For what?"

"Kara was family," his father started out. The casual use of the past tense struck Lee to the core. His father had really given up on her. "You do whatever you have to do. Sometimes you break the rules."

"And if it was me down there instead?"

His father narrowed his eyes and hissed, "You don't have to ask that."

Lee's mind flashed to the moments he had seen Kara with his father. They acted like family. He treated her like a daughter. Her relationship with him was the polar opposite of Lee's. There was genuine love in the eyes of both Kara and William Adama when they spoke to or about one another. He didn't have that.

"Are you sure?"

"If it were you… we'd never leave."

The words made Lee's eyes sting. His father's tone had changed to an open, brutal honesty that he had never heard before. He gave his father a short nod of understanding before turning and leaving like he had first intended.

His father had said when someone is family, then you do what you have to do. You break the rules. Lee had always stuck to the rules for all his life. Sometimes he thought it was his only downfall.

Well, not this time. His father was right. Kara was family. And family meant more than anything else these days.

He had to get to the CIC within a few minutes to prepare for the FTL launch out of the system. There had to be something he could think up by then, some way to get this rescue mission reinstated, some way to buy Kara a little more time, some way to keep the Fleet from jumping away and letting her die.

But there was nothing. As hard as he concentrated, as much as he tried, there was no solution. He had no way of rescuing her short of commandeering a Viper and going rogue. He was two steps away from running out of the CIC and doing just that when Dee announced Dradis contact.

The bastards who took Kara away from him. Even if there was nothing he could do to save her, there was that.

There was revenge.

* * *

Lee watched her walk away as if it meant nothing that she had just admitted how little she really thought of him. She had seen him fly too many times for them to count. She knew what he could do. And still she thought he was going to blow it.

And yet you still love her.

Gods. He really wished that little voice in his head would just stop. It was constantly nagging at him, pointing out that Kara could do no wrong. He would always have these forbidden feelings for her even if she was holding a gun to his head and screaming if he didn't give it up she would shoot him. He would let himself die.

Oh. Well, that was a nice mental picture.

Time to stop drowning in sorrow and start thinking up every possible angle for this mission. He had gotten them into this jam by wasting all that fuel trying to save a woman who could so obviously save herself every time.

The fact that his faith in her abilities had never wavered, not once, was too ironic for him to even comprehend.

* * *

Lee laughed as Cally pulled him into a hug. She really was his favorite deckhand by far. And for two seconds, he actually let himself believe he could tell her that. But then the memory of the fraternization policy kicked in and he pulled back from her. He couldn't tell her. There was no way.

His eyes rested on where Kara stood in front of him. If he couldn't tell Cally how much he liked her, then he certainly couldn't tell this phenomenal woman how much he loved her.

"Apollo, you magnificent bastard! That was one hell of a piece of flying, and I couldn't have done it better myself."

Her words erased the last bits of anger he had kept trapped up inside, but he wasn't going to admit that to her. In fact, he probably deserved to make her say it at least ten more times just to make sure it was committed to memory properly. "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."

"I said I couldn't have done it better myself."

Nope. Twice was definitely enough. Tipping his drink to her, he smiled, "Well, thank you."

"I had my doubts."

He wondered why she thought he hadn't picked up on that. She practically told him there was no way she could count on him to do the job that she was destined for. Okay. Maybe the anger wasn't totally gone.

He gave her a small nod. "So did I." Okay. That surprised her. This would be more fun if he was actually the type of person who enjoyed hurting others. He had never really gotten the hang of that sadly. "I wasn't sure that crazy ass plan of yours could even possibly work."

That made her laugh. Gods, he had missed hearing that. It seemed like she hadn't laughed for him in way too long.

"You deserve this."

He snapped out of his little daydream to stare down at the cigar she held out to him. He recognized it immediately. His father had given it to her as a way of saying he was sorry for his harsh words after he found out about Zak.

Oh gods, Lee. Don't think about Zak right now. You're too happy to think about Zak.

Frak. Was it wrong to think that? He didn't know.

He turned to talk to a few of the Specialists who were laughing and joking around him. He really should try to get to know these people better. They probably thought he was a god for what he had done since they didn't really know him. Because it seemed like all the people who knew him had figured he couldn't do it.

Okay. Anger still present.

He laughed as the pretty girl next to him actually called him a god to his face. Maybe he was finally living up to the call sign Kara had unintentionally branded him with back in Academy.

As the people continued to surround him with their congratulations, his mind went back to the vision of Kara laughing.

That little moment had made all the trouble he had gone through worth it.

* * *

These were the things that ran through his head when he first realized that it was Kara standing before him.

"My gods. She is the most beautiful sight left in this world."

"I was wrong. Hygiene has never looked so fine."

"Shouldn't I feel guilty for staring?"

"Zak would be so proud of her."

"I wish that I could just smuggle her away to the bunkroom. It was bound to be empty. The whole Fleet is on this stupid luxury liner."

"She looks breakable. Vulnerable. Not like herself."

"Everyone is watching her. Are they watching me? Are they wondering what I'm doing talking to her? Do they know what I'm saying? Do they know how ridiculous I sound? Do they know what I'm thinking? Oh gods, I hope they don't know what I'm thinking."

"Wow."

"I need ambrosia."

"Wonder what my father thinks of her dress."

"Frak."

But the thought that shook him up the most was "She did this for me and only me."

* * *

Lee felt Kara sink into his arms. He had only asked her to dance with him. He hadn't expected her to show so much enthusiasm. In fact, he was pretty sure that their closeness was against some Fleet policy.

But frak it. For once, he couldn't give a care about what policy dictated.

For the first time in days, Zak's voice echoed through his head. "How about love, Lee? Do you love her?"

His brother had asked him that day on Atlantia if he loved Kara. He had lied to him. He had told him there was no way he could love the same woman that his brother was so infatuated with. In his heart, he knew that he had loved her with everything he had at that moment.

And now?

Now he loved her even more.

And it scared him to death. Because he could never have her. There was just too much baggage.

Dr. Baltar interrupted him before he could come up with a reason why the baggage didn't matter. It seemed Lee wasn't the only one who wanted to dance with Kara. He gave the good doctor a smile of relief. If he could just get some distance between himself and Kara, then maybe he wouldn't end up doing anything stupid.

He still looked at hopefully. If she said no to Baltar like he thought she would, then he can blame whatever happened on her. Maybe the guilt of loving Kara would be less that way.

But she surprised him by slipping out of his hold and into Baltar's. He stood there looking like an idiot as she assumed the same position with the doctor that she had just been in with him.

He had obviously misread what she was feeling.

And he wasn't afraid to admit to himself how much that hurt.

* * *

His father's suggestion rang through Lee's head long after William Adama had returned to his post in the CIC.

"You got to lose control. Let your instincts take over."

His father wanted him to let go? He didn't understand what he was asking.

Lee had let himself go for one second the night before. He had let his instincts take control and had found Kara secure in his arms. Stares and whispered comments were ignored. Feelings were felt.

And then life served him up another frak you.

She didn't even hesitate to move on.

Boxing with his father had always helped him work out his aggression, but this time he really held back. He wanted to let go and just let the man who was making his life so damn difficult for no reason he could see cry out in submission. But instead he found himself on the floor having been knocked around by life and by his father for too damn long.

Control issues, his father said. He had control issues.

Well, he could agree with that. The only problem was he didn't have a problem with too much control. He had a problem with not enough control.

When it came to Kara, he had none. He lost every semblance of control when she was close enough to touch, to smell, to taste. She assaulted his five senses at once and threw all coherent thoughts in his head far, far away.

He ripped his boxing gloves off and tossed them into a corner.

He had control issues.

But it was nothing a punching bag couldn't fix.

At least, he hoped.

* * *

He had never imagined himself as being too jealous to talk to her. He had lived through the time where she was so blissfully happy with his brother while he languished in a land of unrequited love. No one had ever caught on to how much he envied Zak and how much he wanted Kara.

He had always been good at keeping his mouth closed.

Still was.

She had looked him straight in the eyes, so vulnerable, so brutally honest, and whispered "I'm really sorry." She had paused, almost as if everything she believed in hung on the next words to come out of his mouth. Almost as if she would finally self-destruct if he gave her a little push either way.

And he had turned on heel and ran.

His jealousy and his cowardice had caused him to flee at the one turning point in their relationship.

He finally felt the despair that he knew everyone in the Fleet must have been dealing with since the moment they became a stranded band of survivors, together against the world.

He was alone like the rest of them.

* * *

"Apollo, this is Galactica. I repeat, you are ordered to bring your Viper in for debriefing."

This was the fourth time Lee had heard the order to return to the ship.

Somehow he couldn't tear himself away from the sky. It glittered slightly with the aftereffects of the Cylon Raider's FTL drive. In the back of his head, he was reminded of the trails that Kara always left behind everywhere she went. Sometimes they were trails of blood and violence. Sometimes they were trails of exaggerations and awe. Sometimes they were trails of laughter and tears of joy.

She had been right there within reach only seconds earlier. Why hadn't he figured out that she was going to do something this fraking stupid?

Because she gave you no warning, Lee.

She didn't even give you a goodbye.

Her words to ask for a secure channel with his father rang through his ears. She had felt the need to say goodbye to the Old Man. Not to him, though. He wasn't that important to her.

The small, quiet apology she had given him was also at the front of his mind. Why hadn't he said something to her? Said he knew. Said that it would just take a little time for him to forgive her. Said that he didn't want her doing anything so stupid ever again.

Gods. Kara. He was really sorry, too.

Sorry for not being strong and sorry for letting her down when she needed it the most.

The air around his Viper was cold and no longer had any sign of glitter as he kicked the ship into burn and returned to a ship that no longer felt like home.

* * *

Lee stared past his gun at the terrified face of the XO. He couldn't believe he was doing this. He was pointing a loaded firearm at his father's best friend.

"Men, lay down your weapons." He hoped that his voice sounded commanding enough for them to listen. He didn't want this situation to get any more out of hand than it already had.

If Kara could only see him now.

He winced. Don't think about her. She's gone. She's never coming back.

He steeled his gaze on Tigh as the old man started to scream that this was mutiny and did he realize what he was doing.

"Yes, I do. But you can tell my father that I'm listening to my instincts, and my instincts tell me that we cannot sacrifice our democracy just because the President makes a bad decision."

In the back of his head, he desperately wanted to add a big 'I told you so' to the list of things he wanted Tigh to tell the Commander. His control was directly linked to the pilot who had just gone rogue. Without her here to do the unthinkable and fix the unfixable, it fell to Lee.

Within seconds, the President had the situation back in her control. The guns were lowered, and Lee felt the snap of handcuffs on his wrists. The severity of his actions suddenly hit him. He wasn't going to just get a slap on the wrist for this one. It was highly likely that he would be stripped of his wings, of his title as CAG, and of every last thing he used to identify himself.

And why was it he wanted to blame Kara for all of that?

Since that first day of Academy, his life had taken a series of turns he had never intended. He wanted to be the best pilot the Twelve Colonies had ever seen. His ultimate goal was to raise himself to the level of Commander, almost wishing that he could just sweep his father's job out from under his feet.

But his life hadn't happened like that. Kara had showed up in his life and stole away his brother, both emotionally at first and then physically. The guilt made him study even harder, but his dreams felt hollow now that his brother couldn't be a part of them.

Then she had to do the unthinkable and try to fix his relationship with his father. He had written William Adama off as an unfeeling, uncaring bastard who didn't even deserve one ounce of Lee's respect. And then Kara turned that opinion on its head and made him look at his father in a new light.

Kara had taught him what it was like to care for someone so much that you would do anything for them. She had taught him why you sometimes had to make the crazy move to be sure that things turned out all right.

The shuttle clicked into lock as they were delivered onto Galactica. The Marines began to lead him through the corridors but not in the direction he thought. "Aren't you taking me to the brig?"

"Not yet, Junior," one of the Marines said with a laugh. "Daddy wants to see you."

Lee ignored the snide remark and steeled himself for the hard times ahead.

So this is what Kara had been feeling for the past five years of her life. This hopelessness, knowing there was nothing you could do but pray that the pain would eventually end one day.

Oh gods. He wished she was here. She would know what to do to make this situation right. There had to be some good sarcastic remark that he could say to make everything just disappear.

But she's not here. She ran to a Cylon-infested planet where she most likely was killed on sight. She threw her life away carelessly.

And as much as he mourned for her, as much as it hurt him somewhere deep inside that she wouldn't be around to smile and laugh with him, to make sure he wasn't too serious, he knew that his life could finally return to normal without her there.

No repression. No suppression.

Just a life in a cell in the brig.

Frak. He missed her already.


End file.
